Wigan Athletic: The 12th Man - 'Saturday represents a crucial opportunity for a reset'

Our panel of Latics fans have their say on all things Wigan Athletic ahead of Saturday’s home clash with Bromley...

Martin Lally:

Walking out of Huddersfield on Saturday, despite the torrential downpour, my overriding feeling was one I hadn’t experienced much this campaign: hope.

That might be difficult to believe for anyone giving this piece a few minutes of their day who has watched Wigan Athletic this season. But the hope was strong enough that I’d even gone and bought a ticket for Leicester away!

Back to the start. Crossing the M62 from Lancashire into Yorkshire on Saturday morning, I couldn’t see anything other than a heavy defeat. But as supporters, we allow ourselves that little glimmer of hope, much like the magnificent result we managed away at Sheffield Wednesday earlier in the campaign.

Surely, though, it was written in the stars that our former superstar, Joe Taylor, would return to put our campaign to the sword and deliver further pain to the Wigan faithful.

I’ve read and listened to various opinions on Saturday’s game, and I have to disagree with some of the negativity. I actually thought we started aggressively.

I also don’t think the referee had a particularly good game. What I will say is that he was certainly consistent in his approach, but he had two Tics in his notebook within the first 10 minutes, and a flurry of cards followed in a game that, in my opinion, didn’t contain a particularly bad tackle.

This is only my personal view, but at some point I’d love to undertake a proper review of the decisions given for and against us since administration. My suspicion is that the evidence would be heavily weighted against Wigan Athletic. But is that simply the rumblings of a grumpy old Wigan fan? Perhaps one day I’ll find the evidence!

Before Huddersfield’s opener, we arguably created the best chance of the game. Some intricate passing around the box led to a quick cross, only for us to find ourselves in the familiar position of having nobody in the middle to finish it.

I feel genuinely dreadful writing this next paragraph, but I have to ask: at what point do we end the misery and take Sonny Perkins and Dara Costelloe out of the firing line?

Nobody wants a Wigan player to fail. Ever. As a fanbase, we back our own, but it’s becoming increasingly difficult when the performances give us so little to cling to. I desperately want these lads to prove me wrong - I really do. But the harsh reality is that we won’t win football matches consistently if our striking options continue to fall short of the required standard.

Scott Hogan might be approaching the twilight of his career, but he delivered a crucial moment against Reading when we needed it most. Christian Saydee, meanwhile, now has three goal involvements in three games.

I appreciate that Gary Caldwell and his staff are data-driven, but sooner or later we have to take a punt. There is one thing no spreadsheet can ever fully measure: confidence. Sometimes, a player needs an opportunity to find it, and a manager needs the courage to give them one.

I actually thought Huddersfield’s opener was a good goal. I’ve heard our defence ridiculed for it, but, to be honest, the ball was delivered superbly to the back post. For me, the quality of the cross was the defining factor, rather than the finish itself.

The introduction of Charlie Gray at half-time swung the game in Latics’ favour. Despite unluckily conceding a second, there was only one team really pushing forward with conviction as the game wore on. Huddersfield were on the rack at times, and we looked capable of getting something from the game.

I accept that they’re a good side, but I also wonder how they’d cope with a few injuries. I can see storm clouds gathering if their squad is tested. Their ground, as nice as it is, also felt relatively soulless on Saturday until they scored. I found myself wondering whether that fanbase would get behind the team when the chips are down, should they go on to challenge for the title.

Saydee’s finish came 10 minutes too late. Had we got ourselves back into the game sooner, we might have come away with something. And, in my opinion, we were also denied a nailed-on Latics penalty in front of our travelling faithful in the second half.

Joe Whitworth was many people’s Man of the Match, and it’s difficult to argue against that. He’s stepped into Sam Tickle’s shoes admirably and is quickly becoming a firm fan favourite.

But if you’ve been slating young Reg Walsh this week, I’m sorry, but you’re in the bin as far as I’m concerned!

Technically, for an 18-year-old, I thought he was our best player on Saturday. So much of our progressive play came through him, and watching him kill that lofted ball on the half-turn in the second half was enough to convince me that, one day, I’ll be watching him in an England shirt.

K’Marni Miller was a great addition, and the young lads are exciting. It’s just difficult when you’re competing against physicality week in, week out. There’s clearly talent in this squad, but we need to find the right balance to make it count.

The coming weeks are absolutely critical. Home games at the Brick against Bromley, Mansfield, Plymouth and Barnsley, alongside away trips to Blackpool and Burton, represent a run of fixtures where we simply have to start picking up points. Ideally, plenty of them.

We need to pull ourselves back into the pack as we approach Christmas. The gap can’t be allowed to grow any further.

Gary asked us at the fans’ forum to stick with the project, and for now, I have a glimmer of optimism that perhaps brighter days really could be ahead of us.

Could that upturn in form begin at Leicester on Tuesday night?

I’ve bought the ticket. I’ve got the hope. Now it’s over to the lads.

And, of course, it’s the hope that absolutely kills you.

The really sad part of it all is that Leicester were absolutely terrible. I know people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, and we’re far from perfect ourselves, but my expectations of them were far higher than the reality we witnessed. The frustrating thing is that, had our strikers taken their chances, we could have gone into half-time 2-1 ahead. The opportunity was there, but once again, we failed to take it.

The officiating was extremely poor, too, with another display of yellow cards being distributed like confetti at a wedding. It all added to the frustration of an evening that offered so much more than the final outcome suggested.

I was absolutely dejected leaving the King Power, and the drive home was a real opportunity for some soul-searching.

It brings the next few weeks into sharp focus. This is now a critical period in our season, and by Christmas, I genuinely believe we’ll have a much clearer idea of how the campaign is going to end. We’ll either have climbed back up the table on the back of a run of positive results, or we’ll find ourselves seriously cut adrift from the pack.

It’s a sobering thought, but that’s where we are.

It’s a really tough time to be a Tic. And yet, somehow, we keep hoping.

Sean Livesey:

It’s been a truly horrific start to the season for Wigan Athletic, there’s no way around it.

We’re staring relegation to League Two in the face unless we start picking up results and picking up those results on a regular basis. The last seven days have been a perfect example of how our season has played out.

Following up from the win against Reading we had three difficult away matches in a row, any confidence earned in the win over Reading was wiped out as matches against Oxford United, Huddersfield Town and finally Leicester City ended in disappointment, anger and ultimately defeat.

There’s no question we were handed a horrific start to the season - Reading, Leicester, Huddersfield, Oxford, Sheffield Wednesday and Stockport. All within the first period of the season – but even with that we should be doing far better than we are.

It won’t be the defeats to these top sides that eventually ‘do’ for Latics but the classic Latics ability to shoot ourselves in the foot in the games we simply shouldn’t have been losing.

You can go as far back as Barnsley in the League Cup when any other team playing the way we did that afternoon should have scored four or five, let alone losing on penalties. Yes, it was only the League Cup but imagine the confidence a win there would have given this young – clearly fragile side.

The Cambridge game followed the same pattern; we were 3-0 down before we started playing yet could have won 3-4 with the number of chances we had that afternoon. There are countless other examples available – perhaps Wimbledon?

An afternoon where we could have bettered our record result against Hull City six years ago. Instead, after Sonny Perkins somehow managed to miss an open goal from two yards - you guessed it - Wigan Athletic ended up losing a game that was never a defeat.

A win against MK Dons was richly deserved and felt like the start of something but instead was followed by a floundering display against Stockport County.

Then once again, the non-scoring Latics returned, an otherwise stunning display at Sheffield Wednesday which should have earned Latics three points instead saw us grab a draw from the jaws of victory as Latics failed once again to capitalise and missed another open goal via Reggie’s ‘how did he miss that’ moment.

Later that week saw the tragic death of Kevin Miller followed up by a defeat to Wycombe Wanderers where football wasn’t at all important in the circumstances.

Since then, Latics have stuttered much like the Arkansas Chuggabug driven by Lazy Luke and Blubber Bear in the Wacky Races (bit of a reference for the Yoof there). Defeat against Stevenage was followed up by another well-earned win to set Latics up for a shot at escaping the bottom four.

Sadly the defeats at Oxford, Huddersfield and Leicester have severely damaged an already poor season. All three defeats were disappointing in their own way. A gutless first half against Oxford, before getting level and looking like the only team going for the win – until Fraser Murray decided that a red card would be most helpful in this situation.

A much better display against Huddersfield but once again our old friend “Wigan can’t score can they” meant that a 2-1 defeat was all we had for our efforts. Despite journalists and the Huddersfield manager’s disbelief that we are where we are in the table.

Leicester could be described as a free hit, indeed at the start of the season a quick scan of Leicester’s squad and the amount of money it cost to assemble was enough to make you weep. But the fact remains Leicester have had a poor start and other sides have managed to lay a glove on Russell Martin’s side.

Tuesday night, sadly we didn’t. Once again, we had more than enough chances, especially in the first half. Before the goal and indeed after Latics had the better chances. But therein lies the huge elephant in the room. Chances are worth nothing unless you convert them. Hell, even converting one a week, let alone one a match would see us climb that table.

It’s staggering the number of chances we have missed this season. Endless open goals, Dara Costelloe with the latest example on Tuesday night when it is literally easier to score. Until Latics somehow get over this affliction we’ll stay rooted to the bottom of the table.

The wider issues of the club are well-known – an absentee owner whose indifference towards us grows with each month, no chief executive and a hollowed-out staff contributing to a sense of complete stagnation if not extinction around the club. We can’t change any of that now and, although it’s a vicious circle of one thing influencing another, we need to see something on the pitch, something to cling onto and to have faith in.

A squad that clearly isn’t living up to its standards and a management team scrambling between line-up to line-up in the hope of falling on some sort of formula is failing to deliver that at the moment.

All that being said, we should and could be doing far better than we are. The season really must begin on Saturday against Bromley and again on Tuesday against Mansfield. Six points is the absolute minimum we need from those two matches.

Get that and perhaps, just perhaps, we can start to look up and this squad and indeed the management team (as Gary Caldwell, as much as he has done for us, isn’t immune to criticism at the moment) can start to try to fulfil some of the promise we’ve seen.

Fail to win at the Brick this weekend and I fear it’s going to get very ugly.

John Walker:

Well, we are here again. Early kick-off at Huddersfield and another defeat on the road. Very, very strange team selection for the starting 11. No keeper on the bench - total madness for an away match. Harris gets injured, then a keeper appears.

I have watched every game this season. Could anyone actually tell me what position Weir was playing? Because I haven’t a clue and I don’t think Weir did either.

The engine room in this team is so weak. Nice footballers, but they are physically not strong enough. We are simply not winning the second balls - that’s a major part of football that needs addressing.

Now, you would think a manager with League One experience would definitely know this, and I find it hard to believe that Caldwell doesn’t know that we don’t have the physical presence in midfield.

It’s League One football, Gary, not the Premier League. It cost Maloney his job - possession counts for nothing in League One. It’s goals. Wimbledon, Stevenage, Wycombe and Orient taught us this.

We have never replaced Tom Naylor. He wasn’t very talented but was a warrior - like Sam Morsy. Every team needs one.

We all call the forwards. They are very poor, but the supply of quality from midfield has also not been good enough.

What I find hard to believe is teams on less budgets seem to get more out of average players.

Vickers at Burton - not good enough here, well, to be truthful, never really got a chance. He’s been Man of the Match numerous times for Burton, same with the lad from Coventry. He improved under Caldwell - did we even look at bringing him back?

The last two away games, and some of the comments from Caldwell have been quite laughable, saying we were the better team.

It’s nearly November, and it’s now sacking season for managers... We don’t want to go down that path again.

But teams like Burton, Wimbledon and Stevenage are outperforming us.

Bromley - that’s a massive match for us, then the dreaded trip to high-flying Boreham Wood. We definitely need to go on some sort of run.

Matt Auffrey:

Let's go back to the summer of 2023. We were triumphantly saved after staring down insolvency. If someone told me that just over three years later we would play Oxford, Huddersfield, and Leicester on the bounce over an eight-day stretch of league fixtures, I would’ve rejoiced at the highly-likely prospect that Latics were back in the Championship.

Unfortunately, the reality of the circumstances surrounding that recent run of games has been nowhere close to ideal. The results have been bad, the product on the pitch has been overwhelmingly disappointing, and our current outlook appears bleak at best.

We are trending much closer to League Two than the Championship. In our long-term pursuit of ‘sustainability’, we’ve made many sacrifices. However, the most important thing that may have been left behind is our ambition.

Our fans have spent the last two weeks travelling up and down the country to back the lads and in return they’ve witnessed three matches where we were clearly second best. We've lacked composure and cohesion, and we've failed to consistently perform many simple tasks.

Despite the gaffer's best efforts to keep the squad competitive in difficult environments, our shortcomings should fall on his shoulders as well. In some matches, he lit the fire under the lads too late.

In the case of Tuesday evening at Leicester, there didn't appear to be any fire in our game at all. Caldwell has faced a lot of adversity over the past several months, as it has often felt like he has performed his job with one hand tied behind his back.

However, some decisions continue to baffle the fans, such as keeping Christian Saydee out of the starting line-up again on Tuesday and failing to bring him off the bench until we were already down by two goals with just over 20 minutes left in the match.

If there was ever a time to make proper adjustments, it would be this weekend, as we absolutely must defeat Bromley at The Brick. They are winless over their last seven matches across all competitions with their most recent result being a midweek 4-1 defeat to MK Dons.

It was well understood weeks ago that the October fixtures were going to be brutal. They have lived up to their billing.

Saturday represents a crucial opportunity for a reset against a team with low confidence and in poor form. If we cannot win such a game on our home pitch, I greatly worry about when our next league win will come.

We proved that we can buckle down and grind out a victory against a good Reading side several weeks ago. Under no circumstances should we set up conservatively and aim to edge out a 1-0 victory as we did against Leam Richardson and company.

We need to put out our best XI and take the game to Bromley from the onset. Looking at the upcoming November fixtures, there is an opportunity to establish our first unbeaten streak of the season. It will be a tall task for a team at the bottom of the league table, but it should certainly serve as an immediate goal given our need for any form of momentum.

We’ve taken our fair share of punches and have been knocked down several times over the past few weeks. It’s time to get back on our feet and take control of the fight again.

George Arkwright:

There comes a point during a season, especially a season which does not live up to expectations, where you have to take stock. The platitudes offered by the club’s hierarchy, the need for unity, the eagerness to ‘trust the process’ and the lauding of subtle, almost immeasurably small margins of progress begin to ring hollow; to wear thin.

Usually, at this point comes the need to dissect. To scrutinise the areas for improvement and to posit for change in the direction of the club’s stewardship. Most fans would hope that this posit would in turn force change, which evens the keel and puts the club back on the right footing.

I’d imagine that many of us have felt this way on innumerable occasions over the last six years. That yearning to find our feet. That sinking, plummeting feeling that maybe we won’t. For the most part, there has been light at the end of the tunnel, however small a spark it turns out to be. On this occasion, my moment of enlightenment, of scrutiny, has come far earlier than usual, or maybe far later than it should’ve done, all things considered.

I suppose, whilst there have been murmurings of discontent up until this point, I think that collectively that has been a sense of meandering up until now; a fool’s hope that what has increasingly been looking like a car-crash would somehow resolve itself; hope that somehow, somewhere, things might improve of their own accord. That we might unlock some footballing prowess and our currently sub-par performances might amalgamate into success.

The uncomfortable reality is that this is not a football club suffering from one particular ailment. There is no single tactical adjustment, inspired substitution, or returning player capable of remedying what increasingly resembles a systemic failure across multiple, if not all fronts.

Our football, this far, has been ponderous and ineffective. Stood on the ball with their hands on their hips, our backline are often left to ponder their lack of available passing options, before seemingly playing quarterbacks with lofted, lazy passes up the field in vague speculation of something coming from them. Something rarely does.

On the occasions where we manage to play out from the back, we can look reasonably assured in possession. However, that assurance seems to disappear when it comes to creating chances. Over the last five games or so, we have looked increasingly at a loss when it comes to getting the ball to the feet of a player that would, on paper, take a chance were it created for him.

Individual errors and defensive frailties out of possession continue to undermine whatever fleeting moments of competence we do manage to produce, and our squad; assembled in an unbalanced and disjointed fashion, on a shoe-string budget, continuously seems to look less than the sum of its parts; however small that sum is purported to be.

The majority of our forwards offer literally nothing in front of goal. Last season, Christian Saydee was quite rightly receiving critique for his lack of scoring prowess, fitness, and general ability to play as a target forward with any threat.

This has seemingly alleviated itself for the time being, but relying on a player with his history in front of goal was surely always going to come with quite a healthy amount of risk. If he can continue his scoring run, then more power to him, but to see him alone as our saviour is something of a concern.

To a lesser extent, Dara Costelloe at least has the endeavour to run about and put his body on the line occasionally. Somewhat admirable even in the stead of a profound lack of ability to finish. It genuinely beggars belief that he has made it this far into his career as a forward with such a lack of quality in his end product.

Some offer even less; seemingly content to wander aimlessly about the pitch and allow play to flow around them. Perkins, Sze and to an extent, Hogan, are essentially passengers whenever they are on the pitch, offering so little as to be completely anonymous before their inevitable ushering to the door around the 60-minute mark.

This ineptitude seemingly extends to the sidelines as well. Whilst there has been a tremendous amount of good faith placed on Gary Caldwell, his tactics recently, or more-so his inability to change a formation and a style of play that is not working for us, has garnered his fair share of critics.

I would never think of moving him on at this stage, as after all, he is known to have done really tremendous things on a budget tighter than ours, but unfortunately right now the footballing picture is bleak, and as our figurehead, he will receive his fair share of judgement.

Off the pitch, our situation is hardly more encouraging. A succession of departures amongst the upper echelons of our senior personnel, with Anthony Cole-Johnson replacing the outgoing Sarah Guilfoyle, only to depart himself after barely six weeks in the job.

Contentious decisions surrounding the club’s infrastructure, such as the decision to diminish the hospitality offering around matchdays, whilst also positing the need to increase hospitality attendance, and an ownership group that are always keen to remind supporters of the financial burdens of operating a club like ours, whilst being unable, or unwilling to finance us to a competitive level, have left us wondering what exactly our future looks like. Questions that as far as I am concerned, have been mostly avoided by our hierarchy. No news, in this case, is seemingly bad news.

It all smacks of an incredibly poorly run enterprise. One that has no real business strategy and one that is seemingly content with cutting costs and corners rather than investing in the sustainability that they are so concerned about achieving.

This continually gauging at the bottom line will lead us nowhere but oblivion, and for a family with such successful business enterprises, it is no surprise that the Dansons’ stewardship is attracting increasingly fierce criticism from sections of our fanbase.

However, it is also fair to say that all of these problems have an element of misfortune to them too. We have had quite an extraordinary amount of bad luck as of late.

Our squad could look quite different if we had not had injuries to newly acquired players, some barely playing a half of football before finding themselves sidelined for months.

Our backroom staff has had a fundamental reshuffle and seemingly were on the up under Anthony Cole-Johnson, only for his personal circumstances to change, meaning he could not continue at the helm.

The tragic and untimely passing of Kevin Miller would have been a hammer blow to the resilience of a young and emotional group of players. It cannot be understated just how profound an effect that may have had on the majority of the squad.

Individual errors occur almost game-to-game, but also almost always result in goals or chances for the opposition. Most prominently, we have a lack of goals that statistically, even after a run of lacklustre attacking performances, defies logic. Not a single player in our squad can buy a goal, even when it’s probably far easier to score than miss.

This misfortune unfortunately exposes the mismanagement behind it. Surely a position of the stature of CEO warrants sufficient contingency planning to ensure that an unexpected departure doesn’t leave the club in a state of uncertainty? Surely a professional football team understands that squad depth of a suitable quality is imperative for continued successes in the event of injury?

Incompetence, mismanagement, and misfortune. Three distinct problems, each compounding one another and together creating a great weight from under which Wigan Athletic appears increasingly incapable of escaping from.

Cole-Johnson was right in his assessment that a club can only achieve footballing success if all of the elements of the club’s operations are cohesive and successful. This has been echoed by many and I think as a business we need to get our house in order for any dividends to be reaped.

However, this mismanagement, and incompetence behind the scenes can only begin to be fixed with investment; both in time and resources from our owners. To know that Lucas Danson is essentially in a part-time role at the club, and Mike has absolutely no oversight on its day-to-day operations, is worrying; especially with a complete lack of structure beneath them currently.

Ultimately, the question is no longer simply how we improve our performances on the pitch, but what kind of football club we are on a trajectory to become. Supporters are not demanding miracles, nor are most of us oblivious to the financial realities of modern football.

We have endured administration, relegations, ownership changes and the very real prospect of losing our club altogether. We understand, perhaps better than most, the importance of sustainability. But sustainability without ambition is merely ‘managed decline,’ and is just as damaging as ambition without competence; which we know is little more than empty rhetoric that results in annihilation.

Misfortune may explain some of our predicament, but it cannot continue to excuse the decisions that have brought us here. At some point, those entrusted with the stewardship of Wigan Athletic must demonstrate that there is a coherent plan beyond simply keeping the lights on.

Because for all the talk of unity, patience and trusting the process, there must eventually be something tangible to believe in. And right now, it is becoming increasingly difficult to see what that something is.

Shaun Houghton:

For many Wigan Athletic supporters, the frustration is no longer just about results. It's about the growing feeling that the connection between the fans, the club, and the players is disappearing, and that what supporters are investing emotionally every week is simply not being matched on the pitch.

There is a clear disconnect at Wigan Athletic right now, and it is becoming harder to ignore with every passing game. Fans can accept defeats. They can accept mistakes. What they struggle to accept is a lack of fight, a lack of intensity, and performances that look miles away from the standards expected when wearing the Wigan Athletic shirt.

The display on the pitch has been nothing short of embarrassing at times. Supporters spend their hard-earned money travelling up and down the country, following the club through good times and bad, only to be served up performances that show little urgency, little character, and little understanding of what this football club means to the people in the stands.

The players need to look in the mirror and take accountability. There comes a point when excuses run out. The badge on the shirt carries responsibility, and too many performances this season have fallen well short of that responsibility. Right now, far too many players look like they are simply going through the motions. On current showings, many do not deserve the privilege of wearing that shirt.

What has only fuelled the frustration further was Gary Caldwell's interview after the Leicester game. Listening to it, I was left wondering whether he had watched the same match I had. The reaction across social media reflected exactly that feeling.

Fans saw a team lacking energy, quality and fight, yet the assessment from the dugout appeared completely detached from what had unfolded on the pitch. When supporters feel their concerns are being ignored or dismissed, the divide only grows wider.

If anyone wants an example of what passion looks like, they only need to look at the Under-18s. The pictures following their recent victory said everything. Pride. Passion. Commitment. Togetherness. Players celebrating like it mattered because it did matter. Those young lads understood what it meant to represent Wigan Athletic.

In truth, some of the weakest squads on paper in the club's recent history have shown far more courage than this current team. The administration side that battled through uncertainty and chaos showed more heart. The team that started a season on minus eight points showed more determination. Those groups weren't blessed with unlimited quality, but they had character, resilience and a refusal to give in.

That is what supporters want to see. They want players fighting for the club. Fighting for the shirt. Fighting for each other. And fighting for the fans.

Nobody expects perfection. Nobody expects promotion every season. What supporters do expect is commitment, pride and maximum effort. Those qualities should be the bare minimum, not an occasional bonus.

Until the players start showing the same desire as those young Under-18s and the spirit shown by previous squads who faced far greater adversity, the disconnect between the fans and the club will continue to grow. And that should worry everyone associated with Wigan Athletic.

The supporters have never stopped caring. The question is whether this team cares enough to match them.

The supporters' club also needs to take a long, hard look at itself. While fans voice their concerns week after week, there appears to be nothing but silence. As our club is slowly being killed off through apathy, poor performances and a growing disconnect with the fanbase, those who should be standing up and asking difficult questions seem happy to sit quietly on the sidelines. Not a word. Not a statement. Not a show of leadership. Supporters deserve representation, not silence. The fanbase is hurting, and many are left wondering whether anyone is prepared to challenge what is happening to the club we all love and it seems like when people do you just get the same kick off from them.

Tony Moon:

Lee Marvin sang about having three wheels on his wagon… After the last three results, Gary Caldwell might be thankful for even three.

Unfortunately, it’s been the same old story, where we really don’t help ourselves. Not being able to score is always going to make it difficult to win any game, but giving away sloppy, uncontested goals is something we really can’t afford to do, especially in our pitiful position.

I feel sorry for Dara Costelloe. The demons that must be inside that lad’s head must be truly awful. That said, whatever’s going on in Gary Caldwell’s head must be much worse. A decent recovery last season to something of a disaster so far this season.

No doubt there’ll be calls for his head - maybe rightly so, given the results - but how many times has twisting mid-season, rather than sticking, worked for us before? Maybe the likely cost of change rather than any loyalty will be what keeps GC in a job... But sometimes, it’s strange how things can work out when it really didn’t look like they would do.