What happened to Latics this season? An analysis.

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

Who is the hero and who is the villain of the season?

Managers come and go. Roberto Martinez has done a wonderful job against the odds. So did Steve Bruce and Paul Jewell before him.

The common thread is the backing they have had from Dave Whelan. The owner is a rarity in English football – a chairman who played in the top flight. We Wiganers can be direct and blunt times – Whelan is no exception. But then  again, some of the things he has said needed saying.

Dave Whelan is the hero. Despite relegation he is already saying that the aim he has left in  life is to get Wigan Athletic back in the Premier League. He is the inspiration behind the club.

The villain is pure bad luck. Wigan Athletic have played some terrific football this year, but have had no luck. The injuries they have had would have put any club under threat. They prevented Martinez putting out any kind of settled side all season. They say luck averages out, but it didn’t for Wigan this season.

The defining moment/turning point of the season

The home loss to Swansea was a devastating blow. Once again injuries forced Martinez to put in a stop-gap defence and it resulted in giving three goals away. It was sandwiched between a hard fought win at West Bromwich and the FA Cup Final.

Having to play at Arsenal three days after an FA Cup Final would be too much for most teams. That a stretched Wigan squad put up a great show for 60 minutes or so against a rested Arsenal team was remarkable, but the odds were loaded against them. The result put them out of the elite league.

Was the club’s potential fulfilled this term?

The season started with optimism, following a wonderful run at the end of the previous season. After all, when you can beat Manchester United, Arsenal and Liverpool in a short space of time, then you should surely be looking at more than survival in the coming season.

It was not to be. The season was punctuated with horrendous defensive errors, which so often gave Wigan defeat from the jaws of victory. The lack of mutual understanding in the forever-changing defensive line was certainly a factor, but some of the errors were fundamental and led the club to be relegated.

Managerial masterstroke/failing

Roberto Martinez continued to be positive throughout  a season in which the results were just not coming. That was his greatest strength –  enough to inspire his club into an FA Cup Final victory.

It is easy to criticise a manager whose club have been relegated. Critics will cite awful defending and a lack of penetration in attack. Too many passes that went sideways or backwards. Martinez fans – the majority – would admit that was the case, but would point to the classy football the team produced, even in the darkest moments. The quality of their football in the cup final matched that of Manchester City, a remarkable achievement that raised global awareness of a small club.

Goal of the season

The importance of Ben Watson’s last minute cup final winner dwarfs anything that preceded it.

My son and fellow writer, Ned Brown, described it in graphic detail:

“When you watch it again on television, it is hard to tell that Ben Watson’s FA Cup winning header actually happened in slow motion. But from my bright red Wembley seat about 15 yards away, I can assure you that the world stopped for a magical 10 seconds as the ball sat up, suspended in mid-air, spinning. Then the world moved forward again, in freeze-frame snapshots. Joe Hart’s acrobatic leap and disbelieving eyes. Arouna Koné’s realization.”

What needs to change?

Dave Whelan announced today that Roberto Martinez has been given  permission to discuss a vacant managerial position.  Strangely enough, winning the FA Cup might well have been influential in him making the decision. What more of note could he ever achieve at the club?

There will be a mass exodus of players. However, there is no need to panic. Martinez has put in infrastructure and the club has started to look long-term. The development of a  strong youth academy remains paramount to the club’s continuity in top level football.

Wigan Athletic have spent eight years in the Premier League, have reached the League Cup final, have won the FA Cup. They  are a club to be reckoned with.

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How Much Longer for Bob and Dave?

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

Roberto-Martinez-Dave-Whelan-Wigan-1024_2943161

“I have one ambition left in my life and that is to get Wigan back in the Premier League.”

So said Dave Whelan just over a week ago.

It seems like the FA Cup win has put a new lease of life into the Wigan owner, 76 years old.  At times Latics supporters have pondered on Whelan’s ability to keep motivated, given all that he has achieved for the club and his advancing years.  How much longer can he keep it going?

Wigan Athletic without Dave Whelan does not bear thinking about at this moment in time. The good news is that he is committed for the short term at least.

Although Latics are going to lose around half of their current squad there will be enough quality players remaining to provide a strong backbone for a promotion push.

Funds gained by selling prize assets – such as James McCarthy, Arouna Kone and Callum McManaman – are likely to be ploughed back into the acquisition of new players. Young players who have been carefully nurtured – the likes of Fraser Fyvie, Roman Golobart, Lee Nicholls, Eduard Campabadal, Jordan Mustoe, Daniel Redmond, Nouha Dicko – are going to be pressing for first team action next season.

Despite relegation and the impending departure of so many players there remains a mood of optimism at the club. But then for a third consecutive summer there is uncertainty over the future of manager, Robert Martinez.

In most clubs the manager would lose his job for his team being relegated. Martinez has certainly had his critics during his four year stint as manager. However, the support he got at the victory celebrations on Monday showed how highly he is held in regard by so many fans. Not only did he keep Wigan above the relegation zone for three years on a budget that was “shoestring” in comparison with the competition, but he also built an infrastructure that will serve the club for years to come.

Who could blame Roberto Martinez if he decided to move on? Every manager needs a challenge and the Spaniard has certainly had lots of those already at Wigan. But now the parameters have changed. What would he have to realistically aim for if he were to continue?

Current media reports present a picture of the main focus of discussions between chairman and manager being on youth development and training facilities. Martinez rightly wants the chairman to commit to advancement in those key areas before deciding if he, in turn, will commit to the club for a further period of time.

Whether Martinez stays or goes, Latics have need more quality young players coming through the ranks. Even as a Premier League club, Wigan Athletic’s under 21 and under 18 teams have been playing in the second division of the Professional Development League  this year, with clubs from the Championship division. That the under 21 team reached a mid table position is no indictment on the coaching or management at that level. It is the lack of quality coming from  youth level that is the concern. Although it can be argued that results are not so important in younger age ranges,  it is no coincidence that the under 18 team has lost a lot more matches than it has won this season.

Roberto Martinez is right in his insistence on a good youth development programme. It has been wonderful to see Callum McManaman come through the ranks with such impact. Before him it was Leighton Baines. But if the club is to be sustainable in the upper leagues in years to come  it is going to need quality young players coming through teh system more frequently.

Lots of exciting work remains ahead for the formidable duo of Roberto Martinez and Dave Whelan. Next season begins with Wigan Athletic playing in the Community Shield at Wembley. Then the efforts will begin to put up a good show in the Europa League and to get promotion back to the Premier League.

We will find out early next week if Roberto Martinez is up for these new challenges. The vast majority of Wigan Athletic fans will be hoping that the Bob and Dave partnership will continue in the near future at least. They have done so much together, but there is still much more that needs to be done.

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Wigan’s First Blue Victory Parade

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

A wonderful article by the Guardian on Monday quoted Trevor Silcock, 63,  arriving at the FA Cup victory parade with three generations of his family. He recalled going to Springfield Park with his father and grandfather.

“This is the greatest day of my life,” he said, before adding: “After the kids being born, that is.”

Trevor has to be the same person who was in my class in primary school. I have not seen him since he was ten. I recognized his name and age straight away and envied him for being able to be there for those cup celebrations. I left Wigan and have worked in many places since then. Living in different countries has been part of my way of life, but my heart has always belonged to my home town.

When Trevor and I were at school the rugby club would sometimes parade the Challenge Cup through the town centre. I can remember seeing it, but try as I might, I never felt an affinity for them.

Being brought up in Warrington Lane in the south of Wigan, I was constantly surrounded by rugby fans. Sometimes our teachers would take us up to St Patrick’s field – a bastion of rugby league – to play games, including football. It might have been regarded as heresy by the management of that wonderful amateur rugby club which has provided so many top players to the professional game.

I wish I could have been in Wigan’s town centre when the Latics paraded the FA Cup. To coin an overused description it was “unbelievable”.

But why should it be any different than the local rugby league club’s celebration parades?

Let’s try to be fair. Wigan are the best supported team in the rugby league and have won the Challenge Cup 15 times in my lifetime. Their record is unparalleled in their sport.

But then again let’s get things into perspective. Wigan Athletic won the FA Cup by beating a Manchester City team that was put together by mega-money. It was David against Goliath. In terms of relative economic power the rugby team have been the Goliath compared with the teams they have beaten. Wigan’s rugby team attendances average around 16,000 compared with a division average of less than 10,000.

The town of Wigan can support two teams. The rugby support remains constant, but in the past there have been so many football fans who have traveled to Liverpool or Manchester to support the big clubs. Most of the younger generation of football fans now prefer to go to the DW Stadium. Despite a difficult season and relegation Wigan Athletic averaged over 19,000 this season.

Through their eight years in the Premier League and winning the FA Cup,  Latics now have a legacy that will keep them in good stead for years to come. Their success has helped dispel that old myth that Wigan is a rugby town.

Latics might not ever win the FA Cup again, but it will be remembered in Wigan for generations to come. I only wish I could have been there with Trevor to revel in the emotions of the celebrations.

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Season in review: One step back but a giant leap forward

Posted by Ned in Other, Reflections, Specials and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Wigan celebrate FA Cup win with parade shortly after Premier League relegation - video

No sooner had the dust settled on Wigan Athletic’s FA Cup semifinal success over Millwall a month ago than a notion started circulating that the Latics could become the first club to win the FA Cup and suffer relegation during the same season.

Deep in their hearts, most Wigan supporters suspected that the combination of defensive injuries and late season fixture congestion would probably make the dream double of survival and FA Cup a step too far. By the time a ball was kicked in the FA Cup final, just about every Latics supporter in the world had been asked what they would prefer: stay up or win the cup?

Though a complicated question, the answer was never really in doubt. Thirty thousand people — three eighths the town’s population — coloured the town of Wigan blue for yesterday’s FA Cup victory parade, emphatically putting ignorant and outdated “rugby town” stereotypes to bed. They sang and cheered, and even drowned out their manager, on-stage with a microphone, with chants “Roberto Martinez, we want you to stay.” There was not a boo or a negative word to be heard — not at the parade, nor at the Emirates last Tuesday when the team was consigned to relegation. The enduring sentiment was and is one of sheer pride.

This is not to say that relegation doesn’t hurt. Football, and the Premier League in particular, is a game of fine margins. Matches turn on a single incident, and there were a host of them this season, that if reversed, probably would have kept Wigan up. James McArthur’s missed opportunity to seal the game against Swansea, Tottenham’s incredibly fortunate last-gasp equaliser at the DW, Joe Hart’s unbelievable save to deny Franco Di Santo — all recent — stick in the memory.

But relegation from the league was always a possibility — no, a probability — and has been for years. Sunderland, who finished three points above Wigan, signed Steven Fletcher, Adam Johnson, Alfred N Diaye and Danny Graham within the past year alone for a total of 30 million pounds. Fellow relegation rivals Aston Villa, for context, signed Wigan’s best player two seasons ago for 9.5 million and kept him on the bench for most of the campaign — next to 18 million Darren Bent. They could afford to leave them out because they’d signed a gem of a player in Christian Benteke for 10 million pounds the previous summer. Newcastle spent more than 25 million this season. Southampton almost 33. Wigan’s total spending amounted to 9 million on four players, all of which were covered by the sale of Victor Moses to Chelsea. Conor Sammon’s 1.2 million deal to Sheffield Wednesday earned the club a net profit on transfers, something none of the aforementioned achieved. (Source: http://www.transferleague.co.uk/)

The good news when it comes to league status, as Martinez has said, is that it can be rectified. Not many teams bounce back up to the Premier League immediately following relegation. But not many teams that go down were living within their means during their Premier League stays like Wigan was. How many clubs have we seen promoted, overspend, get relegated and disband upon the realization that they cannot afford to keep paying the players they overspent on?

Sure, Latics will lose some of their stars — and those players deserve the chance to move to a top flight club. They were brought to Wigan on the promise that they would be allowed to move to a bigger club when the time was right for both parties. The stable financial footing Dave Whelan and Martinez have guided Wigan Athletic to means that they are not obligated to sell any of their players. They will, but only because it is beneficial to the club’s future. For every N’Zogbia or Moses — or this year probably McCarthy — that goes, four or five young talents are signed. Four such youngsters — Roman Golobart, Eduard Campabadal, Nouha Dicko, Fraser Fyvie — are likely to play big roles next season and cost Whelan very, very little.

A popular claim at the moment says that league status is temporary while trophies are forever. While certainly true, it does not quite sum up Wigan’s emotional season, or explain the absoluteness of their fans’ pride. If it had been QPR that had won the FA Cup but been relegated, it is highly doubtful that the overwhelming feeling at their parade would have been one of pride and progress. Their team has been messily run since being promoted two years ago, thrown money — a lots of it — at the problems and assembled an overpaid, overrated team of opportunists who will likely be sold off auction-style during the summer as they try to slash the astronomical wage bill they’ve created for themselves.

With apologies for harsh words to supporters of QPR, the point is that celebrations at yesterday’s parade were not solely focused on the amazing, unimaginable fairy-tale story of little Wigan spectacularly toppling the richest team in the land and defending league champions to lift the oldest football competition in the world. They were an acknowledgement of how far Wigan Athletic has come as an institution and the work of the last decade. The team will play in the Charity Shield and Europa League for the first time next season. A product of the youth and reserve squads was named man of the match in the FA Cup final. The New York Times has featured the Latics three times in the past month. Thirty thousand people came out to support the team. State of the art training facilities are on the horizon. Wigan Athletic won the FA Cup. Wigan won the FA Cup. The Latics won the bloody cup!

Relegation may be a step back, but the infrastructure is in place to keep this club in the Premier League or thereabouts for years to come. Of course, much hinges on the future of the iconic hero of this Wigan revolution, from player in the lower divisions to the manager who lifted the FA Cup, Roberto Martinez. But for now, it is safe to say that despite going down, Wigan Athletic is on the up.

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An entertaining goodbye

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

Boycegoal

Wigan Athletic said goodbye to the Premier League through an entertaining 2-2 draw with Aston Villa. Latics’ display had the hallmarks of what we have seen so often this season – bouts of champagne football interspersed with mediocre defending.

The £24 miliion Darren Bent had opened the scoring in the 5th minute, breezing past Paul Scharner before shooting in off the post. Wigan equalized in the 20th minute through a superb header from Emmerson Boyce from an excellent cross by Roger Espinoza. They went in leading at half time following an unlucky own goal by Nathan Baker.

Wigan had recalled Ali Al Habsi in goal. Roman Golobart replaced Antolin Alcaraz, with Ben Watson starting in place of Callum McManaman. The big Paraguayan was missed in a central defence that did not convince. Tactically Wigan played a mélange of what we have seen in recent weeks, with Watson flitting between midfield and centre of defence  and James McArthur playing on the right of midfield.

Aston Villa were unrecognisable from the shaky team we had seen at Villa Park in December when Latics had beaten them 3-0. This team played an attacking game with three forwards and showed no mean level of skill in the process. It did not come as a complete surprise when Ron Vlaar’s hooked shot somehow found its way past Ali Al Habsi after 60 minutes.

Driven on by Shaun Maloney’s creativity, Wigan came close on several occasions in the second half, including a superb volley from James McArthur that hit the crossbar in the 79th minute. But in the end a draw was a fair result.

The Good

Wigan played some excellent football and were unlucky not to have scored more goals. One hopes that they will continue to play this brand of football against rugged Championship teams next year.

It was heartening to see Ali Al Habsi much more dominant in his area. The  Omani has had a difficult season and it is going to take him a while to regain his confidence fully. This was a step in the right direction.

At last Fraser Fyvie was given his Premier League debut, coming on after 69 minutes for Ben Watson. The 20 year old Scot could prove to be a key player next year. The exciting young wing back Eduard Campabadal also made a debut, substituting for Emmerson Boyce in the closing minutes.

It was surprising to see Angelo Henriquez brought on as a subsititute in preference to the more senior Franco Di Santo. One wonders if Wigan are looking at a permanent deal for the young Chilean, currently on loan from Manchester United.

Jordan Mustoe and Daniel Redmond were also on a youthful-looking bench,

The Bad

Once again injuries forced Martinez into fielding  a new central defensive partnership – this time it was Paul Scharner and Roman Golobart. Not surprisingly there was a lack of cohesion between the two.

The centre of defence has been a real problem for Latics this season. The long term hip problem of  Gary Caldwell has had a major impact. Brave as he is – he recently stated that he had not been able to train properly for 6 months  – Caldwell still started in 25 games, but was a shadow of that dominant captain who would marshall the defence. The loss of the excellent Ivan Ramis in January, on top of the long term injury at the time of Antolin Alcaraz, was another blow to Latics’ defensive cohesion.

Injuries apart, it is the centre of defence that has been the weak point of all Roberto Martinez’ teams at Wigan. Ideally there would be an established duo – or trio depending on tactical preferences – in central defence that would develop a mutual understanding through playing together on a regular basis. There is a need for both height and pace in the middle. Is there also a need for a defensive coach?

Player Ratings

Ali Al Habsi: 6 – returning back to form.

Emmerson Boyce: 8 – excellent throughout. Took his goal superbly and almost scored another in the second half.

Roman Golobart: 6 – a  work in progress.

Paul Scharner: 6 – had some good moments, but some bad ones too.

Roger Espinoza: 7 – starting to look comfortable in the Beausejour role. As always, full of energy and put in some great crosses.

Ben Watson: 7 – growing in that midfield anchor/central defence shielding role. Substituted after 69 minutes.

James McArthur: 7 – worked hard. Never ceases to surprise with the quality of his efforts on goal. He has scored some crackers for Latics in the past and his sublime volley 10 minutes from the end could have won the game for his team.

James McCarthy: 7.5 – played a little further forward. He is a class act and will almost certainly be snapped up by a big club this summer. A transfer fee in excess of £15 million would not be unreasonable for  a player with  all round ability and a good temperament.

Shaun Maloney: 8 – a typical performance,  full of running and guile. Deservedly voted ‘Player of the Season’.

Jordi Gomez: 6 – ineffective playing wide on the right. Substituted after 69 minutes.

Arouna Kone: 6 – finishing not sharp enough.

Substitutes

Fraser Fyvie: – came on for Watson after 69 minutes. Has the ability to become a top player.

Angelo Henriquez: on for Gomez after 69 minutes for a rare appearance.

Eduard Campabadal – made his debut after 88 minutes. Could make a major impact next year.

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