Wigan Athletic: The 12th Man - 'I will still give this team the benefit of the doubt'

​Alan Rogers:

​I wasn't going to submit anything this week - had a busy few days and reminded myself that most weeks I'm only repeating myself anyway.

Then the news broke about our new loan signing. I was quite optimistic - an international forward from Forest. However, I made the mistake of looking at the reaction on X. As expected - it was mixed at best. About half were Forest fans saying he was a good player and that we needed to look after him. Then there were a few Wiganers welcoming Dale and wishing him good luck. And then - there were the others. “Why do we keep signing loan players?” That was the main bleat from the sheep who still don't understand the financial position we are in. “Why so many young, inexperienced, players?” Well I suppose on that basis we would never have been lucky enough to have Reece James and others. And my particular favourite - "International player - my mum/grandad/auntie could play for that country!" It really is mentally draining to keep reading so many negative, inane comments. When we had the likes of Wyke and Magennis up front, the ones who were shouting out that they were too old are now moaning about the lack of experience! The Prem days - even the Championship days, are well behind us now and if we are to have even a glimmer of a chance of getting back to those heady times - we need to understand – and accept - our current situation. But it seems that some people simply won't go along with the way things are. Fair enough - it's like talking to a brick wall so let’s just crack on - but at least give our new signings a tiny bit of respect - let them play for perhaps a few minutes before you start ripping them - and the management that signed them - to pieces. Last weekend had actually started quite positively. On Friday we went on a tour of the ground and on Saturday we managed to scrape our first three points of the season. Starting with the tour - it had been 25 years since we had a really good look behind the scenes - some of the younger family members had never had the chance before. And it was very interesting- well organised as usual by the supporters club, we had a laugh and a good mooch around. We all remarked about how the ground resembled a rabbit warren- corridors snaking everywhere- leading to so many different sized rooms. Inevitably this brought up the subject of maintenance. Amazingly we discovered that the hundreds of main light fittings throughout the stadium are still fluorescent tubes! They cost a lot of money to run and need changing over to something more cost-effective but this would cost a lot of money to implement so this job stays on the to-do list. And it seems that it is quite a lengthy to-do list. Looking back to the talk of changing all the seats over a few years ago – how could that even be contemplated when there were much more urgent jobs to be done? Or was that ever, seriously on the agenda? Anyway - this brings us round to the balancing act - we all want to have a successful team on a decent playing surface in a safe, cost-effective environment- but how do we achieve that? Hopefully we can move back to the days when the stadium was being used every day for conferences, weddings and gigs – we currently have a potentially great asset that is being underused. One area that has been opened up in the stadium is the new Latics Museum and there are some really interesting items in there. The Heritage team has worked really hard to get this up and running and is well worth a look on match days. Getting back to Saturday’s game - it was much better than previous weeks but obviously there is still plenty of room for improvement. We need to keep a sense of perspective but again, I feel our defence will grow into a strong unit this season, led by captain Jason Kerr who was immense against Crawley. In addition to his defensive duties he tried his best to push the team forward whenever possible. I still think our midfield needs strengthening but shows promise - however we definitely need reinforcements up front. Maybe Dale Taylor could be one of the answers? Friday is deadline day – hopefully more incoming and no-one outgoing – that would be the best scenario but whatever happens, it won’t suit everybody. It never does!

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Matt Auffrey:

Last Saturday’s performance against Crawley at the Brick was far from a masterpiece, but the three-point return at full time was the most important outcome of the day. We kept very little of the ball compared to our first few matches and provided limited goal threat in the final third over most of the afternoon. Yet, we defended with great resolve and created enough of a scoring chance to get the ball in the back of the net after half-an-hour; albeit, we needed a deflected header off a Crawley player to break the deadlock. Nonetheless, the first points of the season are on the board and our young squad has finally experienced the taste of victory in a competitive setting. That accomplishment could go a long way towards boosting the confidence of a group that is very much still finding their footing as a unit. However, the popular sentiment on social media following the match was that our performance was still too flawed to warrant optimism about the direction that the club is heading. Just a few weeks ago, as many fans were sharing their season predictions, you would’ve been hard pressed to find a single Latics fan who forecasted our team to finish in the bottom half of the league table. The most common sentiment was that we’d either just sneak into the playoffs as a top 6 side or just miss the playoffs by a place or two. Even Shaun Maloney publicly communicated similar ambitions during the preseason. Through three league matches, we’ve hardly looked like a team that will be competing with the league’s best over the course of a nine-month campaign. Regardless of how quickly the squad gels and settles into a positive style of play once the summer transfer window closes, the fact that it hasn’t happened already has put a vocal subsection of our fanbase on high alert. I am a fan of Shaun Maloney and greatly appreciate all of his personal efforts to not only keep the club alive but also cultivate a long-term vision that anyone associated with the club can rally around. I trust that he is the best person to lead us on the pitch given all of the turmoil of the past few seasons and the leadership he has displayed in response. We’ve lost some key players from our last campaign, and there may have been a collective underestimation for how difficult it would be to fill the gap they left in our squad composition. We are working with a significantly smaller budget than last season. We are clearly undergoing some growing pains in our pursuit to create a balanced squad. I am going to be much more critical of our squad and the ensuing performances on 30 September than I will be on 30 August. Our next opponents, Birmingham, are coming off back-to-back victories away from St. Andrew’s and have yet to lose a league match through three fixtures. Newly-signed striker Alfie May already has three goals to his name, and it’s fair to say that Brum will present the most potent attack we’ve seen up to this point in the young season. This fixture represents the type of match-up where we often overperformed (relative to expectations) last season. A view through a different lens shows a potentially terrifying outcome for a developing squad that has yet to establish a positive stretch of form. I surely can’t be the only fan that would snatch your hand off for a draw at this exact moment. The flip of the calendar page to September will give us a better opportunity to fully analyse our summer transfer activity. No matter the result this weekend, I will still give this team the benefit of the doubt that they can make noticeable improvements over the next month. It would provide a great boost to all of us if that process could get kickstarted on Saturday.

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Sean Livesey:

Up and running! Not that we'd know judging by the reaction of some on Saturday. After two straight defeats and a cup exit on penalties to Barnsley a win, and a win by any means was all that was needed on Saturday and Latics did it. Numerous stats were pulled out post match on Saturday, essentially showing how Crawley had dominated the second half. Which they did, but the only stat that mattered was the 3 points and Latics got it. If we'd have somehow had the lions share of possession and chances yet still managed to lose on Saturday I guarantee those saying we didn't deserve to win 1-0 would be losing their mind over us losing 1-0. This is a new side, a young side with a number of experienced players who were mainstays of last season gone. It's going to take time for them to bed in. In the first half you could already see the improvement of Dion Rankine and Sliko Thomas compared to the previous week. These players will get better but more than ever before they will need time. Speaking of young players getting better one of the impressive bits of the season so far has been defence and the emergence of James Carragher. I wondered whether Carragher's time had passed after the injuries had curtailed his progress in the last couple of seasons. But he showed his class and indeed his determination this pre-season, to be in and around the first team squad and now seemingly stepping up to be part of the starting eleven. The next 24 hours are going to make and break this season. We clearly need more bodies and of that experienced ones. If we manage to make those moves who knows but it was disappointing to see Max Power seemingly head to Denmark for his next adventure. Fair play to Max, after the abuse he suffered towards the end of that awful 22/23 season you wouldn't begrudge him his experience abroad but part of me hoped he would be making a move back to Lancashire once his Saudi Arabia adventure had finished as he's exactly the sort of player we need right now. So it's on to big spending Birmingham on Saturday. It's a daunting away day, make no bounds about it but there was an infamous away win at St Andrews the last time we faced Birmingham.​ That fell on the same weekend, two years ago but in the championship. What I'd give for the same result this time.

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Tony Moon:

The late great Curtis Mayfield wrote a song titled “Can’t satisfy”, which (despite the melody being a rip-off of The Isley Brothers’ “This old heart of mine” - Motown successfully sued Mayfield) was a great hit for his group, The Impressions. I wonder if Curtis was thinking of Shaun Maloney and the fans of Wigan Athletic at the time of penning what was to become a Northern Soul stomper. Maybe he was also giving sage advice to Latics fans when he urged us to “Keep on keeping on”. So, “People, get ready … there’s a train coming” and if you miss it, I’ll feel sorry, sorry for you. (Yes, of course I know that Love Train was a Gamble/Huff penned hit for the O’Jays, but with all the fans who are professing to stopping watching Latics under the current regime, it fits beautifully. Onwards and (hopefully) upwards.

*Shaun Maloney has revealed what he considers to be 'the hardest part' of his job as Wigan Athletic manager. At the beginning of the second season of rebuilding the club under the Mike Danson ownership, Maloney says he's constantly torn between talking up the aims - short term and long term - while acknowledging the economic reality of cost-cutting.

"I would say that's the hardest part of what we're trying to do this season," the Latics chief said.

"I don't want to dampen the expectation of our fans, but it certainly feels hard at times to continually try to win and also develop...that's been the hardest thing for me over the last couple of months. It's about getting the staff to believe we're still moving forwards, because a lot of the staff were here during previous set-ups and owners when the budget was very different. That's been tough...I've been trying to get it right with the fans, but it is tough. It's managing that expectation level...I don't want to dampen anything, because I was here when this club was very different, at a very different level. So I don't want to ever stop them believing we'll ever get back to the level above, and even pushing for the level above that.

"While I don't ever want to dampen that, we also have to be realistic about where we are at the moment, and the budget we have, and the kids that are playing. I will never dampen that...and it might cause me problems down the road...but we might as well try to finish as high up this league as possible. And I still believe that, if we get it right, particularly over the next seven days or so, we've got a real chance of fighting for that top six."