Category Archives: Other

Lessons to be learned from Middlesbrough

Posted by JJ (Tony) in Other, Reflections and tagged with , , , , ,
Steve Gibson

Steve Gibson

Wigan Athletic’s failure to win at Middlesbrough on Tuesday leaves them seven points short of the play-off zone, level on points with the north east club, but having played two games less.

“Before the game I would have taken a point” said Uwe Rosler, nevertheless disappointed with his team’s performance and their inability to play the high-tempo, high-pressing football he seeks.

But should Latics be expected to win at places like Middlesbrough? Do Wigan Athletic have any comparative advantage over a club like Boro?

Boro had been in the Premier League for 11 seasons before they were relegated in 2009. Their highest position was 7th in 2004-05 and the following season they reached the UEFA Cup Final. Founded in 1876 they have only spent two seasons outside the top two tiers of English football.

Being in the Championship has been a sobering experience for those in Rosler’s squad who have come down from the Premier League. Middlesbrough’s players must have felt the same when they came down, finishing in 11th place that year. Since then they have finished 12th, 7th and 16th.

There are a lot of big clubs in the division who are desperate to get into the Premier League. Some have been so desperate that they have thrown financial stability to the wind. However, Latics have an owner who insists on sound financial management, despite the criticisms aimed at him by some fans.

Is Dave Whelan right to run the club in such a manner?  Or should Latics go the way of so many other clubs who have dropped down from the Premier League and use their parachute payments to keep and attract the kinds of players who can get them back there?

Middlesbrough announced a pre-tax loss of £13.5m for the 12 months up to June 2012. Like Latics they have a millionaire owner – Steve Gibson – who has written off so many of their losses over recent years. In fact during that same period there were five other clubs who posted bigger losses than them. The leader was Leicester with an after-tax loss of £29.7m.

For some time now Gibson has been writing off close to £1m a month to keep Boro up where they are. With the Financial Fair Play (FFP) rules due to come into effect this clearly cannot continue. The loss announced last March was based on revenue of £18.1m, with only £4.8m coming from gate receipts.

There has been so much conjecture over the years over Wigan Athletic’s attendances. Up to this point their average league attendance has been 15,284 – down from the figure of 19,375 last year. This year they will play 23 home games, compared with 19 in the Premier League. If attendances stay at the current level the aggregate over the season will fall short of that last season. Overall match receipts for league games this season are not likely to exceed £4m.

In the last two seasons Wigan Athletic have made net profits, £4.2m announced in 2011-12 and £822,000 in 2012-13, when increased wages kept profits down. However, last year match receipts covered only around 10% total revenue of £56.4m. It is the commercial sector, dominated by the television revenues, that helped the club compete in the Premier League.

In the 2011-12 season only five clubs in the Championship made a net profit. Net losses amounted to a total of £158m, an average of £6.6m per club. Cardiff City made a loss of £30m last season in moving up from the Championship division.

Lessons learned at Middlesbrough show that a club has only been able to live beyond its means if it has had a rich benefactor. However, FFP is going to limit the ability of a club to survive in that way. Boro are an old club, with a strong fan base, but their short-term future is starting to look bleak.  It is their fifth consecutive season in the Championship, each year having made considerable losses, with promotion a dim possibility.

The dilemma for Wigan Athletic is whether to pump funds into a big bid for promotion or whether to go for financial consolidation. Maybe the compromise will be somewhere between the two extremes. The dip in commercial revenues compared with the Premier League is huge.

With a large squad and a number of players on high salaries by Championship standards Latics will have to use a significant chunk of their parachute payments to make ends meet this year. If they do not get promotion this season we might well see more of the higher wage earners move on in summer. The squad size will reduce now that they no longer have Europa League commitments.

If they stay in the Championship Wigan will have a comparative advantage over most of their rivals for a couple more years. However, each year more teams will be coming down from the Premier League with parachute payments in their pockets and the extra funding for Latics will have a finite lifetime. One only needs to look at what has happened to clubs like Middlesbrough to see what can happen.

Promotion to the Premier League is a priority for Wigan. The commercial revenues there would make it easier for them to survive financially. Rosler is going to have to look for bargains if they stay in the Championship. Given the aforementioned factors Dave Whelan will not be able to dip into his pockets in the same way he did in the past.

The balance sheet at the end of the year will make interesting reading.

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Doncaster Preview – Maynard set for debut

Posted by JJ (Tony) in Other and tagged with , , , , , , , ,

keepmoat

Wigan Athletic travel to the Keepmoat Stadium this afternoon having won their last three away games and being unbeaten in the league in seven matches under Uwe Rosler. Doncaster are fighting to get themselves out of the relegation mire, currently sitting on 22nd place. Their home record reads W4 D2 L6.

Under normal circumstances one would expect an emphatic Latics win. However, Wigan come into the encounter following an energy-sapping 120 minutes FA Cup win at MK Dons on Tuesday. It is by no means an ideal preparation for a trip to any team in the Championship division.

Uwe Rosler will be keen to avoid slipping on the banana skin with three points going begging. Ideally he would refresh his starting lineup to rest some of the tired legs in his squad. However, his options may be limited because of injury problems. In the centre of defence both Ivan Ramis and Thomas Rogne have been out for several games and Emmerson Boyce has had to move over to cover from the right back position. This might be the case today with James Perch on the right. The attacking option on the left of defence is Jean Beausejour, but Stephen Crainey is a possibility.

Midfielders Roger Espinoza, James McArthur, Chris McCann and Ben Watson played the full two hours at Milton Keynes.  At least two of them will make today’s lineup, with a possible start for Jordi Gomez, who came on after 72 minutes in midweek.

Callum McManaman was rested in midweek and could prove a key player today. Rosler wants to avoid burn-out of his young players. He is clearly nurturing McManaman, who has been starting to regain his form. Rosler is also concerned about overplaying the excellent 19 year old Nick Powell. However, had Powell not come on in the second half at Milton Keynes Latics might well have been knocked out of the FA Cup. He provides that extra touch of class and creativity that the team lacks when he is not on the field.

Marc-Antoine Fortune can at last see some light at the end of a dark tunnel, having scored two well taken goals in his last two games. Fortune was in danger of being written off by some fans and lumped into the same category as the hapless Grant Holt – that of two 32 year old strikers past their best.

Fortune has always been a good footballer, a mobile striker with no mean level of skill. His career record shows he has never been a consistent goalscorer, but with his previous clubs he would often be played wide, away from his natural position in the centre. The French Guianian might be into his thirties, but he still has pace and is benefitting from an extended run in the team. In league matches he now has 2 goals from 10 starts, but he leads the ‘assists’ with four.

Fortune fits in the Rosler mould as a mobile centre forward who can contribute towards the high pressing, but also has the pace to launch rapid counterattacks. The same cannot be said of Holt, who has temporarily left the club.

Holt was brought in by Owen Coyle to employ him in the kind of role that Kevin Davies played in the manager’s time at Bolton. He scored two goals in nine starts at Wigan. There has been much vitriol from fans aimed at the big Cumbrian, who has been offered a lifeline by his old manager Paul Lambert at Aston Villa. This is a good move for Wigan, not only freeing up space on the wage bill, but giving the player a fresh chance to show that he is not ‘over the hill’.

This week the social media has been riddled with images of Holt as an overweight, out-of-condition player. However, he was recently quoted as saying that he is in the best shape of his career. Holt has never been a player known for his pace, but more of an old fashioned English centre forward, a battering ram to attack any defence.  A future for Holt at Wigan remains unlikely given the style of play that Rosler seeks and the fan reaction towards him.

Rosler will probably start Fortune at centre forward at Doncaster today, bringing on Nicky Maynard at some stage. However, Fortune has started in the last four matches in a space of 17 days, including the marathon at Milton Keynes. A bold move on the manager’s part would be to put on Maynard from the start.

Maynard fits into the Rosler mould as a mobile central striker who can score goals. At 27 he should be nearing his peak, but serious injuries have held him back. Rosler will ease him in gradually and he could well share that centre forward position with Fortune, the two interchanging between the starting lineup and coming off the bench.

Whether Wigan Athletic come away with the points from today’s game depends largely on the energy and commitment they can put into it. Quite often the adrenalin that comes from a successful run of results can be sufficient to keep those tired legs moving.

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Rested Latics should prove too good for Bournemouth

Posted by JJ (Tony) in Match Previews, Other and tagged with , , , , ,

Results often improve after a new manager arrives at a football club that has been struggling. The challenge for the new boss is to maintain that improvement over a more extended period.

Uwe Rosler had made an impressive start to his reign at Wigan Athletic. He has already shown himself to be more tactically astute than his predecessor and he has quickly gathered an overview of the strengths and weaknesses of his squad. He lost his first match in charge at Maribor, when a ‘dubious’ refereeing decision against Chris McCann was pivotal. Since then Latics have been unbeaten, winning three and drawing three.

Rosler will be keen to show that the upturn in results since his arrival has been no fluke. Bournemouth stand in 16th place and are the kind of team Latics need to beat if they are to make a serious challenge for promotion. Callum McManaman will be keen to get his revenge on the Cherries after being sent off against them in the 1-0 defeat at Dean Court in August.

Latics will go into the match fresh, not having played a midweek match – a rarity so far this season. They will be keen to put last week’s blip of a 3-3 draw with MK Dons behind them.

Rosler has said that the injury situation is improving. Therefore we can expect Ivan Ramis to come back into the centre of defence with Leon Barnett. Ramis is a central defender of Premier League quality and will be outstanding in the Championship if he can maintain his fitness. Barnett has already proved to be one of Owen Coyle’s best signings, solid in defence and dangerous in the opposition penalty area. If he has a main area of weakness it is in his distribution, but Rosler will surely be working with him on that.

With Ramis and Barnett in the centre, Emmerson Boyce can be employed in his best position at right back. James Perch may well be switched to the left flank, providing defensive stability. However, Rosler might go for the attacking option with Jean Beausejour.

In midfield Ben Watson might be fit to return, but if so, will have to fight for a place with James McArthur, Chris McCann and Roger Espinoza. Espinoza has been left out in the cold for so long, but his ‘Man of the Match’ performance last weekend will help his chances. Jordi Gomez also comes into the reckoning.

If fit, Nick Powell will probably occupy the lone centre forward role. Rosler might be tempted to play the two wide men – Callum McManaman and James McClean – although there have been times when the presence of one has possibly inhibited the other. Both thrive on receiving the ball and if the midfield is stretched neither is going to get the service he needs. The other option is for Rosler to play a midfielder – such as Espinoza – in a wide position and to bring the other flanker on later in the game as the opposition tires.

The club’s official site has announced the signing of 19 year old defender Tyias Browning from Everton on a one month loan. Such short term loan signings can be questionable, but it could be that Rosler is looking for cover at centre back until Gary Caldwell is match fit.

Moreover Rosler has tried various formations, including  3-5-2.  Playing three central defenders cannot be ruled out given the quality that Wigan possess in that department. A back three of Barnett, Ramis and Rogne would be formidable at Championship level, let alone the prospect of a return for GC.

Whichever formation Rosler decides upon, Latics have much more quality than Bournemouth.

A resounding win for Latics is on the cards.

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Latics aim for Premier League return

Posted by JJ (Tony) in Other, Reflections and tagged with , , , , ,

2013-rosler

There is no doubt that Uwe Rosler has the Premier League in his sights. Neither he nor Dave Whelan want to stay in the second tier. The question is how to get back there.

For all the flak that Owen Coyle took when he left Wigan he left Latics a formidable squad. His personal charisma and the offer of good salaries by Championship standards enticed more than a dozen players to Wigan.

Coyle’s critics will say that his big failing in the transfer market was bringing in two 32 year old strikers who were past their sell-by date. However, good strikers are in short supply and their transfer fees up in the clouds. Coyle did what he could and he could not have guessed how ineffective Grant Holt, in particular, would be.

There is a strong lobby that wants Whelan dig into his pocket and use the money from the summer sales to sign a top class striker. Somewhere between £13-£15 m is the figure being touted as the funds available.

Signing for Latics as a striker has been a kiss of death in recent years. So many have been signed, but never been able to deliver enough goals. Typically they have been left to fend for themselves as lone centre forwards, up against two central defenders.

Arouna Kone was an exception and did that well last year, scoring goals in the process. One wonders how he would have fared in this season’s team, if he had not been enticed to Everton.

Mauro Boselli was a big money signing by Latics’ standards, but the lone role did not suit him and he was like a fish out of water. Boselli had a torrid time at Wigan – unfairly ridiculed by one fan site – but he has revived his career through a move to Mexico. Since joining Leon he scored 18 goals in 22 appearances in the regular season and helped them beat Club America  5-1 to win the Apertura Championship playoffs with goals like this.

Like Boselli, Grant Holt has come in for a lot of criticism at Wigan. Critics would say that a good central striker makes things happen. Realists would say it depends on the service. During Boselli’s early days at Wigan he had Charles N’Zogbia to his right and Hugo Rodallega to his left, both of whom were expected to strike on goal themselves. Holt has not been given any favours either as the service from the wide players this season has been poor.

Whelan is unlikely to allow Rosler to splash big money on a striker this month. It is a gamble the club cannot afford to take at this stage. Rosler will look at players with goal scoring records in the lower division and those available on loan.

The proceeds from the summer sales will largely go towards providing the new facility at Charnock Richard. Whelan is clearly looking at Latics being back in the Premier League and having an academy that can produce home-grown players. His appointment of Gregor Rioch to spearhead that programme is a real step forward for the club.

Whelan is looking at the long term future of Wigan Athletic, as a Premier League Club. He will be aware of the risks of Latics’ finest young players being poached by the elite clubs, through the EPPP, if they are not in the top tier.

Latics can not only get back into the Premier League, but will be able to see a future there if the academy system takes off. Whelan has already shown himself to be far-sighted in his planning for the club. He will face pressure in terms of investing for the present and for the future. But he will not waiver.

Uwe Rosler has already made a great impression. His challenge is to get the right balance in the team. He does not need to spend a huge amount of money to do that. The squad that Coyle left behind is good enough to challenge for promotion, given a couple of key additions.

Latics are entering a new era. Financial Fair Play will restrict Whelan’s capacity to pump in funds. The club has to stand on its own two feet. Whelan is right to require the club to be run in a business-like manner, making ends meet.

There continues to be long-term planning and the task of getting Latics back into the Premier League is in the hands of one of the brightest and best young managers.

Wigan Athletic continue to look forward to to continue to punch above their weight.

The future continues to look bright.

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A Brentford fan’s view of Rösler – Uwe will go far

Posted by Ned in Other, Specials and tagged with , ,
Billy and Uwe at Brentford

Billy and Uwe at Brentford

Uwe Rosler has made a very positive start to his Wigan Athletic career. Since his arrival good football has returned to Wigan and the future now looks much brighter.

Rosler spent his formative years as a coach in Norway, where he learned the trade. However, it is at Brentford that he made a major impact.

We reached out to Billy of the excellent Brentford fan site www.beesotted.co.uk to get his insight on Rosler’s time there.

Thanks to him for this superb article.

I remember exactly where I was when Wigan made an approach for Uwe Rosler. I was setting up the equipment at Hounslow Civic Centre for Beesotted fanzine’s first ever live YouTube video broadcast.

 It may sound like a dull show – a council planning meeting. But it was our new stadium decision and was possibly one of the most important events in the Brentford calendar this century.  
 
The news soon drifted around the room that Rosler was almost definitely out the door. Five hours later, the council had rubber-stamped Brentford’s move to a new stadium. There were cheers all around. 
 
Everything was finally beginning to go right for Brentford this season after a stuttering start. We were on a 9 match unbeaten streak – 8 of them being wins. We were well on the way to getting a new stadium. 
 
Then there was this. 
 
Many fans I spoke to that night tried to remain upbeat. But deep down there was a niggling worry that everything would fall apart now the manager was leaving. Personally, I thought Whelan could have held it down for at least another 24 or 48 hrs, negotiated with Brentford in private and given the club their night of victory and Uwe time to settle the team before an important FA Cup match. But he had to go public before the deal was done as obviously no one else matters. 
 
Should Rosler have gone? To be fair he had spent over two years living away from his family so a move closer to his home in Stockport was a no brainer really. We just had to accept and move on.
 
Uwe Rosler was personally one of my top 3 favourite managers ever to manage Brentford. And that’s above Steve Coppell, who managed one of the best Brentford teams ever (Sidwell, Ingermarrson, Stephen Hunt, Owusu, Rowlands etc), and Phil ‘Noddy’ Holder, who was the last manager to have got us promoted to what is now the championship. Why was that? Rosler never actually won anything with Brentford. 
 
Rosler was very much a fans’ manager. He understood football fan culture and truly believed that fans were incredibly important to the game. He admired clubs like St Pauli as he felt they were a club who has great liaison with their supporters.
 
He regularly held fans forums and even organised a pre-season friendlies in Germany encouraging fans to stay at the players’ hotel and hang with the players during the trip. 
 
When visiting Wembley for a Man City cup final, he decided to swap the glitz of Club Wembley with drinking with Man City fans in the Green Man pub before the match. 
 
He would often call our fanzine Beesotted to discuss issues and even volunteered to do a video interview for us after we had missed that final day penalty against Doncaster to help motivate the fans. 
 
And despite the wee spat he had with some Brentford fans during our dodgy spell at the beginning of this season when a small section of supporters sang “You’re gonna get sacked in the morning”, Uwe has had a brilliant rapport with the majority of supporters who saw him as being open, welcoming, honest and humble. 
 
On the pitch, Rosler got Brentford to play some of the best football we have ever seen at Griffin Park. 
 
We’ve had some glorious moments under him. We were a mere 7 minutes from victory against West London neighbours Chelsea in a day out that many Brentford fans will remember for years to come.
 
When Rosler arrived his catchphrase was “pass them to death” and that’s just what we did. We quite simply outplayed our opponents week after week – in some games we would have over 80% possession. 
 
He instilled a never-say-die spirit into the team which saw Brentford score a ridiculous amount of goals in the last minutes and injury time – Sheffield United away (with 9 men) , Portsmouth at home and Swindon away in the playoffs being three thrillers in which we scored last minute goals. 
 
And he orchestrated pre-season friendlies in and around Leipzig, Germany which will be talked about in Brentford for many a year – Brentford fans’ first foray into Europe since the Anglo Italian Cup in 1992. 
 
Uwe did have his detractors though. Although the majority of Brentford fans stuck with Uwe through thick and thin, there was a small minority who thought his tactics were often negative and he played too safe too often. 
 
His tactic of always having 11 men back to defend a corner frustrated some fans no end. And another thing that did frustrate folk was – despite often having the lions share of possession and creating 20 or 30 or even 40 chances per game – our goalscoring ratio was low, scoring at times one … or maybe two goals after creating a hatful of chances. There is an argument that if we had put away the numerous chances we had created, no one would be blaming Marcello Trotta for missing the penalty against Doncaster on the final day of the season as we would have long been promoted. 
 
All that aside, Wigan are lucky as they have got hold of a young ambitious manager who will have learned from his mistakes at Brentford. Hopefully, this will be to Wigan’s benefit.
 
Uwe was always learning on his toes and realised after a season in Division one that ‘total football’ does not get you out of that division and we needed to have players and tactics that could mix and match between different styles. And so we did. 
 
He was brilliant at switching the game up. If we were looking poor in the first half, he would often change the tactics in the 2nd half and make a substitution that would completely change the game around. 
 
The counter argument to this was some believed that Uwe was too cautious in the first place and should have been taking the game to the opposition from the start. 
 
Uwe was also humble enough to acknowledge his mistakes. As a manager with a set plan, he would unsurprisingly try to stick with it and try and get the team to deliver his vision. 
 
When things were going wrong at the beginning of the season and Brentford were on a three match losing streak, Uwe decided to have a clear the air session with his players in the dressing room after a defeat away to lowly Stevenage. The players were locked in the dressing room for 90 minutes and apparently it was a real ‘air your dirty washing’ session. 
 
As a result of the meeting, Uwe then decided to switch to a fixed team week on week as opposed to the team rotation system that he favoured from when he had arrived. He also dropped ever-present and highly popular right back Logan for midfielder McCormack as apparently his defensive errors were raised in the meeting (as an attacking right back he was awesome). The result – Brentford won all nine subsequent games before Wigan poached him. 
 
All in all I wish Uwe well at Wigan. He will have learned from his mistakes at Griffin Park and will hopefully go on to make great strides. Our biggest fear is that he may try and take some of our young hopefuls with him – Adam Forshaw being the most likely to leave in the near future but we fear for losing Harlee Dean and Jake Bidwell too amongst others. 
 
Hopefully with him understanding the true meaning of loyalty, Uwe won’t leave us in the lurch. We would be gutted if any of our players left but if the inevitable happens, the least he can do is to sort us out with a decent fee and give us someone in exchange. 
 
I have no doubt that Uwe will not forget that Brentford’s owner Matthew Benham took a great risk in employing him from Norway as a left-field option when he was completely off the radar from clubs on their ‘manager hunt’. He put him firmly on the map by giving him time to develop as well as adequate finances to assemble a decent squad. 
 
It hasn’t gone un-noticed that Uwe has already done us a favour by recalling Nouha Dicko from Rotherham right in the middle of him banging in the goals down there left, right and centre. Where Dicko may now end up in January who knows? But no doubt Uwe has got a master-plan in place
 
And on the plus side, from Brentford’s end, things haven’t fallen apart. New manager Mark Warburton (who was in fact Uwe’s technical director and has been at the club even longer than Uwe) has won his first two games – both difficult ones at that against potential promotion rivals. We are continuing to play attractive football so Uwe Rosler’s legacy continues at Brentford. 
 
With any luck, Mark Warburton will finish off the job that Uwe Rosler came soooooo close to finishing last season come May this year. And finally, Brentford fans can lay to rest the ghost of constant failure that started way way back in 1985 at Wembley in the Leyland Daf Final against …… Oh ….. it was Wigan. 
 
Cheers!!!!!!
 
BillytheBee (@billythebee99) writes for Beesotted fanzine. Check out our articles and videos at www.beesotted.co.uk (@beesotted)

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