Wigan Athletic: The 12th Man - 'Simply put, we have fallen far short of our own expectations...'

Matt Auffrey:

We recently learned that the ‘third time’s a charm’. While I wish this statement would’ve applied to our third, and most recent Vertu Trophy match, (that we needed to win by multiple goals and pair with a Salford win over the Wolves Under-21s), our ‘kickabout’ in the rain on Tuesday evening proved that feat wasn’t meant to be.

Instead, we were given the upcoming weekend off for the third international break of the season, which postpones Reading’s visit to the Brick for a future date. The postponement, which came at the tail end of last week, is unfortunate for Latics because it (most likely) denies us a Saturday afternoon home fixture. We now lose the opportunity to draw the largest crowd possible, which in turn, means some loss of potential revenue.

While Reading are not one of the bigger draws in this division, the prospect of a Leam Richardson homecoming would’ve surely brought out a few extra spectators. The late postponement was even more unfortunate for travelling Reading fans, who not only may have had to cancel existing travel plans and accommodations, but who will have a much more difficult time getting back home should the fixture be rescheduled for a midweek evening.

However, if you’ve been reading this column for long enough, you would know I try to find the positive in any situation. Given our current struggles with referee ineptitude, coupled with the fact we have not won away from home over the first three-and-a-half months of the season, some extra time off probably wouldn’t hurt our ability to recharge and reset.

Our past four matches have had a 1-1 scoreline after 90 minutes of play. The missed opportunities for winning goals have been plentiful - some of which have come at our own expense, while others have been due to factors out of our control.

Nonetheless, we find ourselves at a very frustrating position at this point in the season. We are out of two cup competitions and hardly put up a fight in the one with the easiest pathway to Wembley. We are in the lower half of the league table in 16th position, having taken just 18 points from the season’s first 15 matches.

If you extrapolate our 1.2 point-per-game return for the rest of this season, we would finish this campaign with 55 points. We finished last season with 56 points. Simply put, we have fallen far short of our own expectations.

The good news is we will return to action at Wimbledon next weekend with a healthier, stronger squad. We dominated the chances against an in-form Exeter side last Saturday. I feel like we are much closer to a major breakthrough than we are to an all-out collapse. Maybe all we need to get over the hump is a few extra days of rest, which we have yet to receive at any point this season until right now. Take care of yourselves, everyone!

Martin Lally:

Another week down in the Wigan Athletic calendar, and the positive side is it’s a week without a loss. In fact almost a month without a loss, yet not really progressing on to where we all hoped we would be. Having read a few articles on our current position, I tend to agree that maybe we really are where we should be.

The recency bias in the younger fanbase makes it difficult for younger fans to understand why hundreds of millions of pounds aren’t being spent to push us back to where we belong. But have we ever stopped to appreciate that maybe we are there already? Maybe we are at where Wigan Athletic now are as a club. Stable, recovering and finding a new identity to move forward.

The most recent two games - at Exeter and the water polo contest at Stockport - have been positive in my opinion. There have been passages of play where we have been dangerous. The Exeter game was a classic game of two halves, so a draw was a fair result. I'm not even starting on referees again!

I see Gary Caldwell was given a hard time from some with his post-match comments, but wasn’t he just saying what his fanbase wanted to hear? Wouldn’t you expect him to feel aggrieved after their excellent second half?

Anyway, onto the Stockport game, and on another day we could have had a hatfull and reduced them to little. Let’s be honest, though. It probably should have been called off, the weather was biblical. But in the end, it was a nothing game, we were never progressing, and we gave a good account of ourselves in tough conditions.

The international break robs us of a home fixture, but provides a time to regroup, energise and refocus. The season is yet young and, with Santa loading his sleigh, we find ourselves approaching fixtures against teams who have had good starts, but who have also hit bumps in the road.

Two weeks is two weeks closer to key returns also, so I’m taking the positive approach as we hurtle towards the festive season. I truly believe we will have a better indication of our season when the final whistle goes against 'them from up the road' in January. Until then, we need to stick behind the boys and keep going with our heads down. Up the Festive Tics!

Tony Moon:

So, what are we to make of last Saturday? Are we meant to be happy, in terms of creating sufficient decent chances to win the game? Or are we meant to be more than a little miffed that, yet again, we couldn’t keep a clean sheet, and generally looked second best for much of the game (with Sam Tickle being a strong contender for MotM)?

I honestly don’t know. I want to be happy with the point - I really do - but at the end of the game, it felt most like relief, even with our late threats on goal. That’s a shame really, cos if I need relief, then much better options are available (I was meaning like Vicks Sinex, wash your mind out with soap you mucky beggers...)! As for Stockport on Tuesday, best forgotten...if possible.

Martin Tarbuck:

I am not a huge Ryan Lowe fan, but nor am I a huge critic. We might not like it, but he was spot on when he said we’re not the club we’re used to be. The sooner some sections of our support realise this, the better. We are no longer going to have millions pumped into us to piss the leagues. That club, that owner and that family aren’t in charge any more.

The reality was perhaps masked even further due to two other sets of overseas chancers who followed him down the route of ploughing millions of pounds a month in. But what with them not being from Wigan, they didn’t hesitate to pull the plug once they’d got bored with their expensive toy.

We’re probably right about where we can expect to be for a club of our size. Of course, given what was spent in the summer, we should possibly be higher up the table. But it’s only November, and we’ve had a complete overhaul in staff and style over the summer.

Those kicking off about results this weekend, and indeed kicking off most weekends if we don’t win, perhaps need to realise we have no right to win the league, or even overperform every single year. No football club can. And we’ve had more than our share, it’s time someone else had a turn.

It’s part of the reason I stay off Twitter a lot these days. It used to be a place full of daft lads (and lasses) having a laugh and talking nonsense. Nowadays, I don’t even bother talking football, as any comment quickly attracts a toxic element, very often from people who have set up a second account anonymously to stir the pot because they haven’t got the gumption to put their name to stuff. We used to call them 'multi posters' back in the message board days, eh?

Those calling for Lowe’s head are fools. When we’re good, we’ve been really good this season. And also, when we’ve been poor, we’ve been absolutely terrible. But a quick glance around the rest of the division, or any group of fans, will find show is a common theme. It is just part of League One football.

The only consistency is inconsistency. The years we had storming through League One were very much the exception to the rule and, as mentioned, aided by a hefty dose of financial doping. If you got your wish on Lowe, the next manager would operate under the same financial restrictions, and would have good results and bad results, and generally the longer you stick with a manager, the more likely they are to improve consistency.

However, I should also hat tip the 'let it go' brigade, who seem to continue to blame every single thing on Shaun Maloney, while incessantly defending Lowe, and the rotten luck he’s had. It’s either bad luck, or bad reffing, no matter who the manager is, when we’re getting red cards and rubbish decisions against us. And at League One level, it’s usually the latter.

I also don’t get why many of those who were eagerly defending Lowe, due to him not being backed, were also the most vociferous on calling for the removal of Maloney. If Lowe is financially hamstrung, then what on earth was Maloney dealing with? Forced to sell his best two players with cheap or no replacements, and a much lower, restrictive wage bill. They are both broadly in the same lower mid-table position, and as many have pointed out, Maloney’s win rate is better than Lowe’s, bizarrely.

No agenda here, just stating facts. But having said this, I’m not daft enough to see that Lowe’s football is much more gung ho, and a 1-1 draw is infinitely preferable to a 0-0 draw. We’re leaking many more goals with the same defence Maloney had (probably slightly better if you consider Morgan Fox has replaced Toby Sibbick), but scoring more because Lowe is much more attack-focussed.

We can’t have it all, or so it seems, yet some fans continually demand it. Nor do the more impatient elements of our support seem to be willing to wait for it to improve over time. We’re not a big club, whether you like it or not. Big clubs don’t get 3,000 home fans turning out for cup games. Big club’s fans don’t refuse to pay £12/£15 for cup games and accuse the club of being a rip-off.

Our gates are 10th highest in the division, and only half the size of the club who get the biggest crowds (you can look that one up for yourself rather than me give them an ounce of credit). Clearly, we’re not being run as a charity any more, I’m afraid. Whatever happened to that post-admin glee of 'I’d watch them play on the local park, take all my money'?

I’m not having a pop at anyone who genuinely can’t afford it. I’m having a pop at those who watch every game online, and spend every moment criticising the club, the team, the manager. You don’t deserve a return if you don’t make the investment, I’m afraid. And waiting for the return, before you make the investment, isn’t how supporting a football club works either.

Dare I say a lot of this discontent/disillusionment arises due to the excess of recent past glories. An attitude that we shouldn’t be playing 'clubs like Exeter', when just over a decade ago, we were playing Everton. I get it. It can be hard to take. But the notion we were going to hang around in the Premier League forever is pie in the sky.

Dave Whelan put £100million in over his entire tenure. Nowadays, that would only last a few years in the Championship. And there’s no indication Mike Danson is ever going to be so foolhardy...and why the hell would he?

The situation now is that we’re probably not too dissimilar a club to Exeter, or Lincoln, Leyton Orient, Stockport. The only difference is perception. They are clubs on the up, and we are a club that has hopefully stopped declining, but is just sitting naturally at our level. As mentioned above, our attendances bear fact to this.

One thing I noticed on Saturday was that Exeter fans were ready in the ground, settled behind the goal and singing a good 20 minutes before kick-off. Whereas at our gaff, folk turn up five minutes before kick-off, or emerge from the concourse at the last minute.

Passion versus apathy. And we’re swimming in the apathy at the minute - on the field and in the stands - with no easy way out. Oh for a packed, tight-knit ground like that, compared to our own under-utilised cavern. It doesn’t help sell it to the public of Wigan, does it?

Finally, I’ve got to say, Exeter played some good stuff on Saturday, and that spell in the second half was quite scintillating. I get Gary Caldwell is another Roberto Martinez clone, but they also played a lot of long, forward passes to break at speed and the quick forward interchanges in wide positions were impressive.

Maybe he evolved over time and found his own style that isn’t so rigid? Maybe Maloney would have done the same. And maybe, just maybe, the Lowe style will evolve into one that is more consistent, more cohesive, more purposeful, and we leak fewer goals and we create more. Maybe all it will take is time, evolution and a bit of patience? Yeah good luck with that last one…

That’s the thing - didn’t Caldwell’s Exeter team get hammered 7-0 by Bolton a while back? And somehow he kept his job? Maybe there’s a half-decent manager there (and I seem to recall he got potted here with some fans cheerleading his record of winning two in 12 in the Championship or something...a division our only intention should have been to remain in...and his replacement ended up being far worse).

Be careful what you wish for when calling for a manager’s head! I wish Exeter well, they seem like a decent club. And I wish Caldwell all the best too, despite his predictable snide comments about us at the end. But I wish Lowe better, because he is our manager for now and for the foreseeable future, and throwing online tantrums at him every time we don’t steamroller opponents solves nothing.