Wigan Athletic: The 12th Man - 'Now isn’t the time to be turning on anyone. We’re all ‘Tics, aren’t we, and we’re still MASSIVE...'

Caddy from the 5:

Nothing new on the takeover this week, here’s hoping it’s a good sign and these Bahrain ‘Tics have flogged some oil and put the deposit down. We live in hope, again... The midweek game at Swindon was the low point of the season ON the pitch for me. This was a genuine six-pointer and we simply did not turn up. I’m not gonna hammer the lads because they’ve been performing miracles to even have us in contention for staying up. The new lads have just arrived and we’ve got to thank them for coming to a club in our position – some of them for first-team football, some of them to try and relaunch their careers – either way we should be happy they’re here to help. I’m saying this because some of the abuse Scott Wootton and Jamie Procter were getting on Twitter by our own so called fans BEFORE they’d even kicked a ball was a disgrace, all mainly due to the fact we never ‘announced Will Grigg’. I believe some of our fans live on Fantasy Island at times, he’s on a reported £12k a week at Sunderland, we’ve not got 12 pence and he’s injury prone nowadays. I don’t believe for one second he was ever coming back and that’s a shame, but we have to move on and back the lads who are wearing the shirt, not ones who used to. The real shame, though, is seeing our youth lads being let go through no fault of their own to make squad places for the lads we’re brought in. Yet again the EFL have shown a complete lack of understanding of our situation. Most of these lads wouldn’t be near the first team in a normal season. They’re the future but, because they’ve been thrust into the action, they’re now in the 25-man first-team squad, so we’ve no option but to let them go to bring in more experienced players within the 25-man squad. Is this right? No, of course it isn’t, and hopefully they’ll all get sorted with other clubs, or all the hard work and time spent by the Wigan coaches will be for nothing. Thanks again, Stanley Choi. Back to the players, and the abuse Jamie Jones is getting lately is nothing short of scandalous. Of course I get he’s making mistakes, but he’s been our No.2 goalie for the majority of his time here and, without being disrespectful to the fella, he’d still be our No.2 in ‘normal’ times. What do our fans want...David De Gea? Not happening lads. Again, look at the position we’re in, folk seem to forget this...WE ARE SKINT. Also this is a fella who sold his League One winners’ medal to help our fighting fund you’re turning on now...have a think, eh? I’ve looked at the table and we are nowhere near adrift of safety. New faces are in, old faces are back, and with no more being sold now we can LET LATICS GEL and hopefully turn the corner. I’m hoping Swindon was just a blip, and the visit of Wimbledon on Saturday results in a far better performance. It can’t get worse, surely?! Come on ‘Tics fans, let’s all keep together on this and back the lads come what may. Now isn’t the time to be turning on anyone. We’re all ‘Tics, aren’t we...and we’re still MASSIVE. Right, I’m off round Jamie Jones’ house with a Dino Zoff video and a crate of ‘Bow. UP THE ‘TICS!!

Statto:

Well another defeat and another bad performance – but we move on. We now have the squad settled until the end of the season. Hopefully they gel quickly and string some decent performances in, and we have to stick by them whatever the results are. If we are to believe certain reports, the Bahrain bid is being looked at very closely by the EFL. Does anybody get the feeling of deja vu, and they just don’t want us to have a foreign owner again? Stay Safe.

Matt Auffrey:

We’ve made it to February and there is much to be thankful for as Latics fans. Kyle Joseph, Tom Pearce, and Sean McGurk were not sold. We’ve recently added three new veteran players, each with a vast amount of experience in this division. We’ve secured two of our more impressive players from the first half of the season, Curtis Tilt and Viv Solomon-Otabor, for the remainder of this campaign. We’ve also been reassured the club is not currently in a financially stressed position, which represents quite the contrary from administrator statements made just a few weeks prior. Yet, with many positive developments in the works for Latics, the past week also reminded us administration is a double-edged sword – and someone on the other side is always going to come away wounded. While Deadline Day did not ‘ignite the fire’ that many fans were hoping to see, there should be a sense of relief our first-team squad did not go up in flames. Will Grigg’s failed return to the DW Stadium left many fans disappointed, but I personally was more discouraged by the departures of our six Academy players – two of whom moved onto League Two clubs, while the other four had their contracts terminated by ‘mutual consent’. It was a significant price to pay. The club gained short-term stability in exchange for the loss of major long-term potential. Sam Cosgrove was not ready for first-team football with Wigan at the age of 17, but now at 24 with over 30 Scottish Premiership goals to his name, he will play a crucial role in Birmingham City’s run at Championship survival. Josh Laurent, while not an academy player, could not break into Wigan’s first team four years ago.

Now he’s running the show in the middle of the pitch for a Reading side that is flirting with a return to the Premier League. Both of those players left after relegation seasons and, under better circumstances, both would have remained Wigan players for much longer. It wouldn’t surprise me to see Charlie Jolley, Emeka Obi or any of the other young academy lads playing at a level above Wigan’s several years from now. Tough times bring on tough goodbyes. One goodbye that was not tough was our farewell to John Sheridan. And our midweek fixture at his struggling Swindon team was supposed to bring out in us all of the attributes so utterly lacking during his tenure as manager. Creativity, resilience, success. The end result was a poor performance against 11 men and an even more lacklustre effort against 10 for the last half-hour. The good news is our starting line-up boasted an average age of nearly 27 years. We finally have the experience in the squad we have so long desired. A return to the DW Stadium on Saturday will hopefully produce the 2021 debut of Solomon-Otabor and a much-needed injection of pace into our attack that has gone three matches without a goal. We are still awaiting a takeover. We are still awaiting the return of Lee Evans and Gavin Massey. We are still waiting on Latics to gel. It may be weeks, or even months, before any of those three wishes are granted. We have yet to win a match in 2021, but the quality in the squad is as strong as it has been this season. Our next opponents, Wimbledon, have not won a League One match in over two months. There is no better time for Wigan to turn things around than tomorrow.

Sean Livesey:

It’s been another frustrating week for Wigan Athletic – on the pitch at least. The trip to Northampton for a classic six pointer was called off at the last minute due to a waterlogged pitch...after other six-pointers at Wimbledon and Swindon had also been postponed over the last few weeks, along with Wigan’s own Covid outbreak. Any of the headway and momentum we had made over the festive period feels like it’s been choked off recently. Along with the break in games, we’ve also had to contend with what feels like a virtually new team coming together. It’s logical to expect it’ll take time for the new lads to bed in among those who remain from the first half of the season. That said, it was still disheartening to witness Tuesday’s performance at Swindon, who were also lurking in the bottom three. With John Sheridan under pressure, it’s a game we really should have been looking to come away from with all three points. The line-up now looks strong (on paper), but we once again go back to these lads not playing together as a cohesive unit before. Kyle Joseph was a big miss and, despite dominating the play, we didn’t look like scoring all night long, which reminded me of some of those dark nights in November before Sheridan headed south. Jamie Jones endured another torrid night, yes Swindon’s goal should have been chalked off for offside, but nonetheless he really should have done better with it. He’s an excellent shotstopper and has done well over the last three years, but there’s always a mistake there and, sadly, that’s going to be highlighted when you’re fighting for your lives at the bottom of the league. There’s no point dwelling on the result, it’s been and gone. The key now is for Leam Richardson and Gregor Rioch to get the sort of performances out of this side as we witnessed at the end of November and throughout December. Off the pitch, it’s been a strangely mixed week. The transfer window we all feared would rip apart our young side came and went with the key elements to that side – Joseph and Tom Pearce – still in place. But it also saw a number of academy graduates who have played a big part this season leave by ‘mutual consent’. That included first-teamers including Emeka Obi, Charlie Jolley and Oliver Crankshaw. All players who, through no fault of their own, are now out of a job because of the EFL’s ridiculous rules that limit a club in administration to 23 players. Why Latics are being punished for having their own homegrown academy products count towards that number is beyond me. Now a number of those young lads find themselves without a club in possibly the toughest climate for professional footballers in a generation. All because of someone in Hong Kong and the ineptitude of the organisation up the road in Leyland. Let’s hope any takeover, once it arrives, allows these young lads to return and continue their development. Anything less would be a huge shame. I can see why those decisions were made, we’ve effectively traded the starting point of next year’s League Two squad in favour of decent League One side now. It’s certainly decent on paper. The signing of Jamie Proctor was mocked on Monday night – probably because the very unlikely return of Will Grigg didn’t come off – but Proctor is arguably the sort of striker we need now. We’re missing a target man, and never was the need for one more evident than at Swindon. The return of Viv Solomon-Otabor was a fantastic signing and, along with Scott Wooton and Funso Ojo, it gives us strength and experience across the park where we didn’t have previously. There’s now a free space in the squad thanks to Crankshaw’s late move to Bradford, and it wouldn’t surprise me to see that space filled soon. The question is whether we look at further attacking reinforcements or elsewhere on the pitch. So it’s back to the Dave Whelan Stadium on Saturday, where three years ago we earned a draw against AFC Wimbledon on our way to the League One title. Let’s hope we can improve on that and get a much-needed win this time.

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