Wigan Athletic: The 12th Man - 'This year isn’t too dissimilar to the last admin season but, instead of being locked out, we have the opportunity to turn up and cheer on our young players'

Martin Tarbuck:

I’ve written before about how hard it is for Wigan Athletic to truly know its place in the footballing world. One year we’re winning titles, the next we’re getting chucked in the bin by unscrupulous foreign investors. Even during the Whelan era, it had its ridiculously wild ups and downs, particularly during the latter stages and very often during the course of a season. And yet, just as the world and information continues to move at a faster pace generally, it seems the velocity at which we go from world beaters into panel beaters (if you’ll forgive me Mr Jewell) is also absolutely frantic this season. I can’t offer any expert insight on this, all I have is my thoughts and observations. Of course, it is a touch mystifying that a team that turned over Derby and Bolton on their own patch have subsequently lost many games, often to strugglers and up and coming sides who are punching above their weight. Kind of like what we used to do. I really don’t know how good our squad is, and when I read the opinions of other fans online, some are convinced we should be miles better than where we are, whereas others acknowledge at least for over half the squad, it’s their first ever full professional season, and we have to be patient with them. Of course, there is experience within the squad, residual long-term contractees from the bad old days of paying top dollar, but we are severely lopsided towards the top end of the field in that regard, whereas it is painfully obvious we need a bit of steel and organisation in the centre of midfield and defence.

Another subject we cannot get away from is the standard of refereeing, or rather the continual stream of harsh decisions that have plagued our recent games. The angry men of the internet continue to maintain it is down to our own squad’s lack of discipline, like it was our own team’s discipline that refused to give a penalty when a Pompey defender chucked the ball away in his own box a few weeks back. It’s all a continual ploy to say 'see I told you that manager was a bad ‘un and doesn’t know what he’s doing, give me the job instead'. You'll be waiting a long time for that call, pal. Let’s make no bones about it, a lot of it has been placed squarely at the feet of Callum Lang following his red card at Stevenage. I think we all know he is feisty and has somewhat forthright opinions on the field of play. Indeed, in the past, we've loved him for it...I'm not sure causing a near riot at Plymouth the other year was too wise, mind you. Maybe if we had more experienced players in the squad, he might not be an on-field captain. Yet conversely, in many of the games I’ve seen, the problem isn’t the lack of discipline, it’s the lack of cunning and targeted gamesmanship when it comes to dealing with these incidents. Again, in some games, we’ve watched the opposition players surround the ref and demand he take action. And you know what, if enough of them do it, he can’t book them all. In fact, the more weak minded of them will probably do exactly what they say, in order to make them back off and go away. Oh for a Sam Morsy, a Michael Brown, a Graham Kavanagh, even a James McClean pecking the ref's head for 90 minutes solid. One Callum Lang whinging at the ref is no good, but if we had eight of them whinging at the ref (again, the Portsmouth and Stevenage games spring to mind), we’d probably get a different outcome.

Far from lack of discipline, I’d say many of our young players are offering too much respect to the man in the middle, and meekly accepting decisions. Or they question the ref in a petulant way, which only influences a decision against them, rather than picking their moments to gain an advantage. Of course, in a moralistic world, there is no need to challenge the ref, because he more often not gets things right, and isn’t scared to death of a verbal assault off the likes of Steve Evans in the tunnel after the game. Evans being a case in point...his exploits with referees are such he will set the bar before a game has started, by spending all week moaning about the last ref. He constantly complains about them in the hope they will be more lenient on his team next time and, to be honest, they had more decisions go in their favour against Latics than we get in 10 games. I think I’d rather have a quiet, well-mannered football thinker like Shaun Maloney in charge of my club than a big, boorish bag of wind like Evans, but I can’t deny he is effective. I think it might have been Everton a while back, and more recently Nottingham Forest, who sent the referee’s association a dossier of errors that had been made against their teams, to raise a grievance their team was the one whom they had the biggest agenda against. Indeed, witness the uproar, when Liverpool FC, had just the ONE game-changing decision fall against them this season. They want to try walking a mile in our shoes, it’s happened to us half a dozen times this season. That is the game now, it is a game within a game: everyone complains about refs, and everyone will claim they suffer more at the hands of bad decisions, and those who shout loudest often win through. If you’re not shouting about it, then you’re at a disadvantage.

But anyway, that’s enough ref psychology for now. I don’t know what comes next, we will continue to be an inexperienced, threadbare squad until January, we will lose more games but ideally we’ll win some too. Three home games on the bounce should give us a chance to start clawing a bit back, and let me state here and now the aim this season is to stay in this division. Where we are is not a pretty sight right now. But this is a new squad, with inexperienced players, who will only get better as the season goes on. The fact they started off like a house on fire was probably something of a false dawn. But if we know they’ve got performances like that in them, then there’s every chance they will return. This year isn’t too dissimilar to the last admin season but, instead of being locked out, we have the opportunity to turn up and cheer on young players who have come through our Academy and, due to circumstances, are now getting the chance to play first-team football, They need all our support and encouragement and a bucketload of patience. Good luck with that.

Caddy from the 5:

What a wonderful two weeks for the town - Latics unbeaten, England qualify for the Euros in Germany next year, and the chippy on Wallgate were giving away food before they shut last Saturday...the highlight of the day. Anyway, a long trip to Exeter awaits us on Saturday, and we really need to get back into that August groove. To say our form has nosedived is an understatement and, with Exeter in just as bad form as us, this is our chance before a big month of Saturday/midweek fixtures come thick and fast. The FA Cup draw on Sunday saw the 2013 winners drawn against, yep, Exeter away, for another long trip south in a couple of weeks to see Shaun Maloney take on ex-team-mate Gary Caldwell again. I still have nightmares about THAT penalty in the semi-final, and still believe we'd have won the cup back to back. But oh well, just the one cup so far is still the town's biggest sporting achievement... Anyway, let's hope we get a decent referee this week because - and it's not sour grapes - the standard this year is appalling. Far too many mistakes are being made, and we seem to be copping more than our fair share for some reason... Three home games on the bounce come after Saturday, starting with the 'kids for a quid' against Oxford so, if you can, make the kids go and let them see what we've endured for 40 plus years...A JAPE! Seriously though, let's keep our heads and get behind the lads, they're hurting as well, and need all our support right now. There's a damn good team in there, and it just needs a spark to get us going again. Right, I'm off checking if some random American fella off Twitter called Mike Danson has replied to my rant about Strongbow in the DW...wouldn't have minded seeing his face reading that! Enjoy Exeter, and remember we're back again in two weeks so behave yourselves…

Matt Auffrey:

This exact moment serves as your last chance to catch your breath before we’re inundated with a flurry of five fixtures over the next 15 days. Three consecutive home fixtures at the DW are sandwiched between two trips to Exeter - the first of which we’ll make this Saturday. The second trip will come in two weeks for the first round of the FA Cup. Having lost six of our last seven league fixtures, it should go without saying how crucial a positive result would be for our confidence, our morale, and our prospects of achieving League One survival - which remains our primary goal for this season. This weekend also presents the opportunity for Shaun Maloney to face off against his former FA Cup-winning team-mate and Latics stand-out Gary Caldwell, who has been the manager of Exeter for nearly one calendar year now. It has been nearly seven years since Caldwell was sacked as Latics manager, after securing just 11 points from the first 14 matches of the Championship season. He has since held a number of different roles in the coaching profession, with one of the most notable being the short time he served as an assistant under Maloney at Hibernian. However, the narrative about Saturday’s fixture shouldn’t be about Maloney v Caldwell, or even Latics v Caldwell. It should be about Latics getting out of their own way and doing the necessary things to win more matches. There needs to be less reckless challenges (inside and outside of our own penalty box), less yellow cards due to dissent with the officials, and much better effort off the ball as a collective unit. Three points would be a great reward for all who travelled the nearly 250-mile journey to Exeter. Yet, for a side that hasn’t taken a single point from an away match in over two months, even a draw in Devon this weekend would mark a big step in the right direction. Maloney will have a difficult task at hand picking a starting 11. Between the players returning from international duty, the fringe players who performed well in our last EFL Trophy match, and the squad stalwarts who have been some of our most consistent players up to this point, there will be much to consider. Regardless of who is on the pitch, and how we set up, the team’s 90-minute effort will have a greater impact on the match than any individual inclusion or omission to the team sheet. The season is too young to start fretting about our league table position, along with who is above or below us. If our performances improve over a consistent stretch, the positive results will assuredly follow. Kudos to everyone who is making the trek to Exeter - no matter how short or long your journey may be. Maloney and the lads will need the away following to be in full voice on Saturday. We’ve been given another opportunity to hit the ‘refresh’ button for this season. Let’s stay behind the team and do our part to help improve our fortune.

Colin Garner:

Bit borin' 'bowt Sat'di fut'baw in'nit? While it's quite good to see a few of our players get their international call-ups, I'm glad Saturdays are back. It beats having to go shopping with Jade plus, to be honest, I've missed the 'X' meltdowns, they're quite entertaining. Results haven't been great in recent matches, but I'm not worried. Some folk are calling for Maloneys head...strange bunch. We're in a rebuilding season and, let's be honest, a Latics season is never normal! I'm hoping the break has given the lads a little rest and we start getting results. FA Cup-wise, we drew out Exeter...meh, would've loved someone like Curzan to be honest, but it is what it is, we're in the draw. This Saturday we travel to Exeter in the league, safe travels to those going, get behind the lads, and hopefully we can get a result. Then on Tuesday we host Oxford at the DW, it's half term, it's a 'quid a kid', let's get behind Shaun and the boys by getting as many as we can to the game. These kids are our future fans and will be part of the rebuild.

Red Ned:

This week sees the Latics take the long trip to Exeter, looking to get their season back on track after a run of depressing results. Our ex-manager Gary Caldwell seems to be doing a solid job there and they have made a steady enough start to the season. Hopefully we can get a steady performance out of the team and pick up at least a point, if not all three. It's vital we see some form from the team soon, otherwise the Christmas period, leading into the second half of the season, will see us in a very concerning predicament. Off the pitch there continues to be some positive stuff going on regarding the Supporters Club, and they continue to engage with the community, local children's sports teams, and its members, in a bid to grow the club further and further. Long may that continue. The FA Cup draw was less than kind, drawing us at Exeter, only two weeks after visiting them in the league. Anyone making both trips deserves a medal. Up the Latics!

Sean Livesey:

Saturday feels a bit back to the future, doesn't it? Shaun Maloney's Wigan Athletic facing, erm, Gary Caldwell's Exeter City. He gets a bad press from some sections of our support at times, does Gary. Both as a player and manager which I think is a real shame. It's a wider issue throughout Wigan, of not appreciating what we had, and perhaps not respecting who we had as well. Caldwell did well for us as captain and certainly did well for us as manager. He was unfairly turfed out, after delivering a title-winning season at the first time of asking. A mistake, and it was a big mistake that David Sharpe and co later said shouldn't have happened. Especially when you see how poorly Warren Joyce performed as his replacement. There's definite similarities between Caldwell and Maloney. You would expect that, of course. Both being disciples of Bob and all that. But there's marked differences as well. Caldwell has more experience at this level than Maloney, and hasn't shied away from getting his hands dirty. Though the budget and spending power Caldwell had during those heady days of 2015/16 are probably enough to make Maloney weep, when compared to the restrictions today's club is operating under. He did really well with Exeter last season to keep them in this division and, up until recently, had made great strides in achieving the same again this year. Exeter are sitting comfortably in mid-table on 16 points, but their barren spell is extremely similar to ours, their last league win coming on September 16. We simply have to extend Exeter's losing run. Without a league win since, ironically enough, September 16, Latics need to bring all three points back from Devon. We spoke last week about a reaction from the run of defeats, and we had that during the second half against Fleetwood in the EFL Trophy. It's now time to see that translate to the league. Everything about the refereeing controversies needs to be left now, complaining won't change anything. But we can change our position by getting a result to bring back to Lancashire, and I'm sure Shaun and the boys will be fully focussed on that.