Tag Archives: David Sharpe

Latics fans react to Rotherham defeat on social media

Posted by JJ (Tony) in Social Media and tagged with , , ,

kendrick

Local journalist, Paul Kendrick, was summing up Wigan Athletic’s first half performance through Twitter. The second half saw Latics shaking off the lethargy of the first 45 minutes, dominating the play, pulling back two goals. But sadly it was not enough.

The starting lineup was a shock to most of us. It had just one holding midfielder, with two wingers and two central strikers. For the second game running Warren Joyce had put forward an attacking lineup. But it proved to be a naiveity as Wigan’s  midfield was unable to feed those attacking players and to adequately shield its defence.

It has been a depressing Christmas period for Latics fans. The announcement of a loss of £2.3 million for  last season was accompanied by a realistic, if somewhat foreboding, statement from Chief Executive Jonathan Jackson:

“The future outlook after the current season is a challenging environment. The club is now receiving the final year of parachute payments which have significantly inflated turnover for the last four years. The EFL Championship is populated by clubs backed by extremely wealthy owners, who are prepared to lose enormous amounts of money in pursuit of promotion to the Premier League. Even clubs recently relegated from the Premier League are finding it difficult to compete in this expensive and ultimately unsustainable race for the ‘promised land’.

The financial support of the Whelan family has allowed the club to enjoy incredible success in recent years, without incurring the large financial losses suffered by similar clubs, and that support allows us to continue to pursue long-term goals in the future. The club will always aim to compete at the highest level possible but we must also be realistic in our ambitions and ultimately financial sustainability must continue to remain our priority.”

At the moment Latics are on the road back to League 1. Can Joyce turn things around? Will he get the backing he needs from his chairman for urgent January signings? Are the current problems due to the manager, the players or “the club” itself?

We took a look at the social media following yesterday’s match and came up with a wide range of views. Our thanks go to the Cockney Latic Forum, Vital Wigan – Latics Speyk Forum, The Boulevard of Broken Dreams (Facebook) and Twitter for providing the media for the posts below to happen.  Thanks go to all whose contributions are identified below.

 

Jordi Gómez ‏@JordiGomez14  tweeted:

Missed opportunity to get a result today, but table looking the same than yesterday. Let’s keep going.

Paul Kendrick ‏@PKendrickWIG listed the injured players unavailable to Joyce:

Worth pointing out missing from today’s squad: Morgan, Burke, Garbutt, Daniels, James, Powell, MacDonald, Perkins, Gilbey, plus Bogdan #wafc

Chairman David Sharpe ‏@DavidSharpe91 tweeted:

Know you all care, so I understand your frustrations. However, we’ve always faced adversity together, so let’s continue to face it together.

But ex-Latics captain and WISH FM commentor Neill Rimmer ‏@neill_rimmer sent a couple of tweets saying:

Terrible result today, time to stop blaming the managers & look above!

Lot of good people have been pushed out of the club. Results getting worse.

Nottinghamlatic on Latics Speyk suggested that Latics do not belong in the higher echelons:

Brutal fact of football life is that if too few fans are interested a club will not survive at the top level i.e. Premier League and Championship. We are heading back to our natural level i.e. League 1/2. This is where we belong after our brief flirtation with the big time. I think we have to get used to it. We have people at the top who won’t take risks now. Wigan people won’t take risks with their hard earned dosh, either.

Neil Aspey on The Boulevard of Broken Dreams said:

The owner and the alleged chairman need to think about what they want for the club. Cheap everything done on the cheap and a series of disastrous decisions have got us to where we are now.

Stuart Alker‏@stuartalker was also critical of the chairman:

The sooner some of our fans wake up and get from up the chairman’s backside and realise he’s a big part of the problem, the better. #wafc

Bickymon on the Cockney Latic Forum talked about the Whelan family possibly selling up:

Not looking good is it i said give joyce a chance but now i fear for the clubs future. Only way forward is whelan familly to sell up and go. Too many huge mistakes made last couple of years we are going backwards division 1 looks like our level With this lot.…….I must be going blind because we seem to be heading back to those dark years before whelan. Understandable nobody wants to buy us whelan knows that his familly is stuck with the club and we are stuck with them

Henski on Latics Speyk advocated a return for Gary Caldwell:

Sharpe made the biggest mistake of his short career sacking Caldwell. He followed it up with an even bigger one.He has ruined the season and perhaps many more to follow.He should go cap in hand back to Caldwell before it’s too late. Sharpe needs to fix this mess he has created!

Hindleygreenlatics on the Cockney Latic Forum went so far to suggest that Graham Barrow be put in charge:

I am not one for changing managers – I never wanted Caldwell to be sacked I firmly believe he was starting to turn it around and we would have been ok. I also believe the club has made a big mistake with Joyce. I don’t like him putting the cones out before the game, him wearing shorts, seemingly side-lining all the coaching staff, making Barrow sit in the dug out when he used to do an effective job in the media gantry sending down messages to the bench. I don’t like him referring to one of our players as “Powelly”. I don’t like the fact that he comes across as an idiot!

I guess I don’t seem to like his amateur approach. Most of all I don’t like the negative almost defeatist attitude to games.A mistake has been made in this appointment and while it will look bad on the club I believe the mistake needs to be rectified ASAP. Even if that means giving the job to Barrow until the end of the season.

King_dezeeuw06 on Latics Speyk added:

We can never say how Rosler and Caldwell would’ve done for sure. But if they stayed without a big improvement in their managerial skills, results, performances and transfer dealing we were very likely going down. So sacking either made sense and i look back i don’t regret either.But the issue has come with picking poor replacements and things getting worse. Those replacement choices I do look back on and regret.

Wiganfanfrank on Latics Speyk commented that:

It’s a joke that managers are fired these days for so little. We havent had a healthy right back all year, no true goalkeeper, inconsistency in the center of the park, striker personal issues and a lot of unlucky goals. Then we had to start over in the middle of the season, and the performances have not been any different than under Caldwell. We have the talent to stay in this league, we need a lot of help in January to stay in this league. I never agreed with firing Caldwell, but now I think sacking another manager would hurt us even more.

Tom Prescott ‏@tomprescott94 tweeted:

Joyce doesn’t fill me with any enthusiasm but I still think it’s as much the players then the manager. We just aren’t good enough. #wafc

Garswoodlatic on the Cockney Latic Forum put the blame on the players:

it was the Summer window in which we got rid of players who had bonded well into a feelgood team who knew how to win, and replaced them with some very poor replacements.Not Joyce’s fault. Blame the so-called players.

Owen Hughes on the Boulevard of Broken Dreams advocated bringing in youth:

AFTER TODAYS RESULT PLAY THE KIDS AT LEAST 5 OF THEM ARE GOOD ENOUGH WE WILL SEE MORE EFFORT

Paul Knowles ‏@paulknowles66 tweeted Paul Kendrick@PKendrickWIG

I feel like the managers lack of charisma is reflected in the team. Our players are better than this! #WAFC

Bert Hughes ‏@_Bert_Hughes tweeted the chairman:

@DavidSharpe91 Depressing financial message last week and now this result. We are in a downward spiral at this moment in time.

bert

Elbalson@elbalson tweeted:

BREAKING NEWS:

Wigan Athletic’s strategy for the upcoming transfer window revealed –

elbalson

 

 

Like us on Facebook, or follow us on twitter here.

The finances facing Joyce

Posted by JJ (Tony) in Financial and tagged with , , , ,
Photo courtesy of Wigan Athletic FC.

Photo courtesy of Wigan Athletic FC.

Just nine days ago Warren Joyce left a comfortable position at Manchester United to join a club struggling to avoid relegation whose budget ranks them at 19th in the Championship division.

Why would Joyce sever the link with Manchester United, a giant club where he had been held in high standing for more than eight years, to take over Wigan Athletic? How did David Sharpe sell the move to him?

A three and a half year contract probably helped, but what vision did Sharpe give him of where he expected the club to go in that time? What financial backing would the chairman be willing to provide to help Joyce compete for new players on an even keel against other clubs in the division?

Joyce has a fine reputation for developing young players, but it was at a club where funding was plentiful. If Wigan Athletic’s wage bill is already low compared with the majority of clubs in the division, what is it going to be a year from now when the inflow of parachute payments will have dried up?

It was Jonathan Jackson who mentioned the budget ranking at a recent Fans Advisory Board meeting, according to a reliable source. But how can this be the case when Latics are still receiving parachute payments?

Getting accurate financial data from football clubs is never easy and what you can get applies to years well gone by. But Jackson’s alleged statement certainly gives food for thought.

If a business were run like a typical Championship club it would soon find its way to bankruptcy. In 2014-15 Bournemouth spent lavishly on their ascent to the Premier League, making a loss of £39 million. From a financial point of view it could be said that the Cherries’ gamble came off and that the loss could be written off by the huge increase in revenue in the Premier League. But Fulham lost £27 million in finishing in 17th position, with Nottingham Forest losing £22 million and Blackburn Rovers £17 million only to hover around mid-table.

In fact 18 of the 24 clubs made losses that year. Of those in the black, Birmingham City and Wolves used their £10 million parachute payments to keep their heads above water, each making a profit of around £1 million. Three other clubs showed profits through transfers, revaluation of assets and owners writing off debt. Only Rotherham United, who made a tiny profit, did so without such inputs. They did well to narrowly escape relegation.

Wigan Athletic are one of 8 Championship clubs receiving parachute payments. The clubs that are newly relegated from the Premier League will receive around £28 million in their first season, whereas Latics are in their final parachute season and will receive around £10 million. Next season they will receive a solidarity payment of around £2.5million due to clubs in the division who are not in receipt of  parachute payments.

Last season in League 1 the parachute payments gave Latics a huge advantage over the other 23 clubs who did not have them. They were able to pay out major transfer fees and offer lucrative salaries to players who had completed their contracts at other clubs. The result was a squad too strong for the third tier.

However, the tables have now turned. Wigan Athletic find themselves in a division loaded not only with other clubs buoyed by parachute payments, but others whose owners are splashing out major money in a bid for promotion. In contrast Latics’  recruitment policy has had to be adapted according to the constraints of its finances.

Five players have been brought in on loan, another nine for either economical transfer fees or on free transfers. When Latics last started a Championship season under Owen Coyle the salary budget was around £30m.  The current budget could be as much as 40% less. The main factor is the reduction in the parachute payments from around £25m in the first year and £20m in the second to £10m in the third and fourth years. However, knowing that there will be a major drop in revenue next season, the club has had to be careful in offering long term contracts with lucrative salaries. One half of the players recruited this summer have contracts that expire before and or at the end of the season.

In a recent visit to Brentford to watch Latics fight I spoke at length with a group of their fans about their chances of reaching the Premier League. On paper it does not seem impossible. On coming up from League 1 the Bees finished 5th in 2014-15, reaching the playoffs. Last season saw them finish 9th. However, the Brentford fans were not optimistic about their club’s ability to reach the top division. They pointed out that they have a salary cap for individual players and have to sell off their top assets if realistic sums are offered. They surmised that owner Matthew Benham has put in over £90m into getting the club where it is today. Without his support they would surely flounder.

Brentford provides a model for comparison. Their average crowd last season was 10,700 which is close to what we can expect at Wigan this season. But in gaining promotion they made a loss of £7.7 million, which rose to £14.7 million that first season back in the Championship, with wages going from £10 million to £17.7 million.

The reality is that, without major input of funds from the owners on par with those of competitor clubs, Latics will not be able to compete on an even keel in the division.

Following a dire 3-0 home defeat to Reading, Wigan Athletic’s place in the Championship remains in jeopardy. There were always going to be questions over the ability of players from last season’s squad to replicate such form in a higher division. Moreover a more cash-strapped  recruitment process involved  a number of the players brought in have been short of first team exposure in the past year. This is not to suggest that those players do not have sufficient quality for the division, but it was always going to take them time for their match sharpness and overall fitness to reach a competitive level.

It is once more a period of transition for Wigan Athletic. For so many years Dave Whelan’s  financial backing, together with good management and terrific spirit, helped the club eclipse so many of the others currently in the Championship division. But times have changed and we will have to wait and see how the club will cut its cloth over the coming 12 months.

The first priority is for Joyce to get his new club out of the relegation zone and consolidate its place in the division. Should that happen we will then be looking at how the club is going to stay competitive in a division when the financial odds will have turned against their favour.

In his first full season David Sharpe brought back vitality and optimism to Wigan Athletic. His positivity shone through in his communications with the media and in his willingness to spend big in bringing players into the club who could help ensure promotion back to the Championship. When he appointed Gary Caldwell he talked about bringing back football played “The Wigan Way”, suggesting that the Scot would be there long-term. The chairman’s positivity was to be rewarded with a League 1 championship title.

But times and circumstances have changed.

In the summer of 2015 Sharpe had splashed out close to £1 million to bring a central striker, a hefty fee for a club about to begin anew in League 1. Moreover in the January transfer window he finalized the transfer of a player on loan for around £600,000. Without Will Grigg and Yanic Wildschut Latics would have been hard pressed to get promotion, let alone win the division.

This summer saw players brought in for modest fees, others being free agents or loanees. Granted Sharpe did stick his neck out to offer contracts which one assumes were close to the market rate for players like Jordi Gomez, Adam Le Fondre, Nick Powell and Stephen Warnock. Moreover a three year contract was offered to the 31 year old Jake Buxton who arrived on a free.

Sharpe’s recent comments about Joyce’s appointment and the club’s immediate future suggest that the Whelan family is unwilling to put in the kind of financial investment that is the norm in so many other clubs in the division. The chairman has made it clear that he is not going to throw money around in the style of clubs like Derby County, whilst emphasising the new manager’s skills at developing players. Put simply there is not the same vibe coming from the young chairman that we had a year ago.

The main aim for the current season must be consolidation in the Championship. It is to be hoped that Sharpe will avoid the kind of fire sale that we witnessed in January 2015 that led to relegation. It was an exercise based on cutting the wage budget by at least 30%. Significant money was saved in the short term, the club eventually losing £3.9 million for the season, substantially less than it would have been. But relegation was to mean that the club would only have one more year of a parachute buffer even if it were to regain Championship level status. With hindsight the scale of the clear out was a major mistake. But will history repeat itself this coming January?

In the meantime Joyce will try to get the best out of a squad that has enough quality to get out of the relegation zone. In the long-term, assuming he is given the longevity denied to Caldwell, he will most likely be working on a budget that will be dwarfed by those of the vast majority of clubs in the division. The strategy will involve selling off the pick of those young players the manager has developed in order to stay afloat.

Joyce’s immediate task of consolidation in the division is his most immediate challenge. Should he manage to do that he will face a more difficult task: that of achieving miracles on a shoestring budget.

Like us on Facebook, or follow us on twitter here.

A case for cautious optimism in the Joyce era

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

 

A couple of weeks ago many Wigan Athletic supporters had probably never even heard of Manchester United’s reserve team coach Warren Joyce. The betting at the time was on Old Trafford icon Ryan Giggs. But as the talk of the former Welsh winger gradually evaporated, the harsh reality hit us. How likely was it that Latics could actually afford Giggs, or that he would even seriously consider a relegation battle in the Championship at Wigan?

The process of appointing Joyce seemed to drag. Indeed, a thread on the normally effervescent Vital Wigan forum entitled “Excitement levels reaching zero” referred to his impending appointment.  The premature dismissal of Gary Caldwell was still ringing in our ears, leaving a feeling of lingering discomfort among some. There were hopes for a big name like Giggs or maybe an experienced ex-Premier League or Championship level manger.

But as time has worn on people have started to learn more about Joyce and his potential to do a good job at Wigan. Indeed some questioned why he would want to take the job, given his successes at Manchester United and his high standing within the club. More than a few of us are now wondering whether David Sharpe has made an inspired choice in recruiting the Oldham-born coach.

Joyce might not be a household name, but has certainly been held in high regard in Manchester. He had spells managing clubs at both Hull City and Royal Antwerp and had a highly successful record with the Manchester United development squad. But where can he take Latics? What will be his brief? What kind of backing will he get from Sharpe?

Although Joyce’s appointment eventually came as no surprise there was an element of the latter in him being given a three and a half year contract. Previous managers had been appointed on rolling contracts, so why has Joyce been treated differently? One possibility is that he would not have taken the position without that security. It is only 18 months ago that the chairman was talking about Caldwell being at the club long-term. Or was Sharpe making a statement by offering his new manager such a deal?

In the last 24 hours we have been able to listen to Sharpe talking about the new manager’s appointment and Joyce himself talking about his new job and his past experience. Sharpe commented that:

“Warren is the perfect manager and coach for where we are at as a club right now. He’s great at developing younger players, putting his time into younger players and coaching them into becoming winners and better footballers but he also relies upon experience too, like we already have.”

The chairman also made it clear that the club would not be splashing money around like Newcastle United, Aston Villa, Derby County and Sheffield Wednesday.

Joyce’s immediate task is to lift the club out of the relegation zone. In the long term his ability to develop young players will be of paramount importance in a club that will no longer be buoyed by parachute payments. Put simply, he will be responsible for enabling the club to punch above its weight in a division where so many others are splashing out money like confetti.

In order to maintain financial stability at Championship level, without major injections of funds from the Whelan family, the club will need to generate the bulk of its revenue through the development and sale of young talent. If that is indeed the club’s desired direction, Joyce appears an astute and logical appointment.

In the meantime, his focus will be on a win or two to ease the nerves that led to Caldwell’s dismissal, and his arrival.

Rejuvenation in Cardiff – match reaction

Posted by JJ (Tony) in Match reactions and tagged with , , ,
tiger-bay

Tiger Bay – now reborn as Cardiff Bay.

I had been planning to make the journey to Cardiff some time ago. The principal reason had been to watch Latics in the hope that their luck would turn, but if it didn’t there would at least be the solace of being able to visit Tiger Bay.

As a small kid I had actually been to watch a couple of rugby games before becoming taken over by a constant need to visit Springfield Park and watch non-league football. But at one of those rugby games I saw Danny Wilson tear the home team apart. I heard that, like the man on the right wing of the other team that day, and a famous woman singer, he was from the rough port area of Cardiff known as Tiger Bay.

In the event I was to be lucky on both counts. A superb counterattack had seen Jordi Gomez notch an opportunist goal and send the away support into a mixture of shock and rapture. It had looked like if anybody was going to score, it would be the home team. Despite having the edge on possession, Latics had not posed much attacking threat until the 86th minute when that happened.

Although the arrival of Neil Warnock had brought two wins and a draw in the last three matches to lift them out of the relegation zone, the sparse home crowd was muted from the start. Latics dominated the first ten minutes, only to later look vulnerable to well-flighted crosses coming in from the wings. As the game progressed I had the uncomfortable feeling that the Wigan defence would eventually cave in to the pressure as they had notably at both Bristol and Nottingham. But thanks to a solid and resilient rearguard action and a profligate approach by the Cardiff attack they were to hold out for a much needed win.

When Gary Caldwell signed Jordi Gomez it looked like the Catalan’s flair and goalscoring capabilities were going to be invaluable. But in recent matches Gomez had not made the starting lineup. Perhaps Caldwell, like many of us, did not think that the Catalan and Nick Powell could share the midfield. But Powell was injured yesterday, giving Graham Barrow an easy choice to make. But until that goal Gomez had not looked at his sharpest. However,  he was to do what so many midfielders have done much too little of this season, by getting into the box to support the attack. The timing of his run was superb.

There had been speculation among some travelling fans as to whether we would see something different following Gary Caldwell’s premature departure from the club. But the pundits said that Barrow was a rock upon which the possession-style football had been built, not only in Caldwell’s day, but also under Roberto Martinez. In the event it was the same kind of football that we have seen for the past couple of months, the only difference being that this time around Latics were to win.

That win was long overdue and we can only speculate that if the tide of fortune had turned into Wigan’s favour a week ago against Brighton then Caldwell would still be with us. It has been a frustrating season, but Latics’ performances have not been abject. There had been so many games of fine margins where Latics could have won with a tad more luck on their side. Would that tide of fortune have eventually turned for Caldwell as it did for Barrow yesterday? David Sharpe was certainly precipitous in dismissing his protégé so early in the season.

With so many new faces it was always going to take time for the team to gel. The lack of a consistent back line was a particular problem. But yesterday the central defensive pairing of Dan Burn and Jake Buxton continued its steady improvement, looking strong throughout. Stephen Warnock has probably been Wigan’s best performer so far this season and he was excellent again yesterday. Moreover Reece Burke was to put in a good performance in the problematic right back position.

One swallow does not make a summer, but the win at Cardiff will provide a good platform for a new manager to build upon. Caldwell’s squad cannot compete with the best in the division, but it is at least good enough to get a mid-table berth. But who will that new manager be?

Strangely enough Danny Wilson’s son was the glamorous early front runner for the job. But was Ryan Giggs really willing to take a position with Latics and would Sharpe have been able to offer him the kind of terms he would expect? Since then the list of candidates touted for the position has been decidedly underwhelming. The latest bookmaker’s odds favour Manchester United development squad coach, Warren Joyce, who has no prior experience of managing a club in England. Neverthelss he has a fine record as a coach in developing young players. Should Joyce be appointed he will need the support of the fans.

Tiger Bay had a reputation as a tough and dangerous area before its renovation. The names of Wilson, Boston and Bassey are now echoes of its past. Under its new name of Cardiff Bay, it is now a major tourist attraction in a city that has been rejuvenated from its past as a coal and iron and steel exporting port. Will the rejuvenation of Wigan Athletic now begin too?

After five managers in three years and continued turnover of playing staff the club is in need of stability. When Sharpe appointed Caldwell the ten year combined reign of Paul Jewell and Roberto Martinez looked like a blueprint for the future. That was until the young chairman shot from the hip and cut down the Scot.

Sharpe’s grandfather made some of the best managerial appointments in the club’s history in Jewell and Martinez. He also made arguably the worst in Owen Coyle and Malky Mackay, neither of whom showed a love of good football. Let’s hope that Sharpe can rectify his unfortunate and hasty decision to dismiss a manager who had brought a divisional title to the club just six months before. Put simply he needs not only to choose the right person for the job, but to offer him more longevity than Caldwell received.

The win at Cardiff was a great relief, but there are still choppy waters ahead. Having the right leader at the helm is crucial.

Sharpe ushers in the new era at Wigan Athletic

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

 

Sharpetweet

Being able to communicate on the social media is not a prerequisite for being a chairman of a Football League club. If it were one would wonder how many of them would have a clue about where to start. They could do worse than take some lessons from David Sharpe.

Since taking over a Wigan Athletic at a low ebb in early March it has not been an easy ride for the young Latics chairman. He kept faith in manager Malky Mackay for a month before sacking him and bringing in Gary Caldwell. Could the youngest chairman and youngest manager in the Football League keep Latics in the Championship?

Sadly it was not to be. With hindsight we can maybe say that it was a month too long. If Mackay had gone earlier? Relegation was to take a heavy toll and meant that the club had to drastically downsize its operations. Within a space of three years the club was to reduce its budget from around £50m to around £10m. It was an uphill task for the young duo.

However, Sharpe has stayed buoyant and positive throughout. The club had lost its way. An era of unprecedented success had led to a freefall where the brakes just did not seem to work. Sharpe went through some tough times, but his capable use of the media was to provide fans with hope for the future. Sharpe is typical of his generation in being comfortable with the social media, but he has also shown himself to be adept at dealing with television and the press. He comes across as being bright, positive and eloquent.

In his first media interview following the announcement that he was to be taking over from his grandfather, Sharpe managed to achieve a balance between recognising Dave Whelan’s fabulous achievements and letting us know that he was first and foremost a fan, but that he had not only ambitions to get the club back to where it had been, but had plans on how to do it.

“The ultimate goal is to return to the Barclays Premier League. We will also continue to prioritise plans to build a first class academy and training ground, where the club can start developing its own players to feature at first team level more regularly. We also need to create a modern and robust player recruitment process, where every targeted player is researched, statistically measured, and watched in different conditions to ensure we have a complete picture of the player and the person we are planning to sign. But we need to do all of this this in a structured way, inside a sustainable long-term financial framework. It won’t be easy and there may be some difficult times ahead before we are back on the right track but my grandfather’s legacy over the past 20 years is to show that anything is possible in football. Over that time, the club has created a platform for itself, and now the challenge is to move into the next era with confidence and ambition.”

The academy plans are currently on hold due to the cost of developing the Charnock Richard facility given current revenues. However, Sharpe recently showed business acumen by purchasing Bolton Wanderers’ training ground at Euxton for a knock-down price.

Sharpe’s efforts at reforming the recruiting process has led to Latics making bargain signings of players who were out of contract or getting close to it. They have formed the basis of a squad that is challenging for automatic promotion. He has also been willing to splash up big money, paying up towards £1m for Will Grigg, Reece James and Yanic Wildschut, all of whom are young with the potential to be key players for the future or could be sold off at a good profit. On the reverse side, there was a major outflux of players in summer who were on Championship salaries, plus a couple more in January. The bottom line is that Latics now have players who are willing to give their best for the club, a far cry from the seeming apathy of last season.

Whether Latics get promoted this season remains to be seen. But Sharpe stuck his neck out in making an inspirational appointment of a rookie manager in Gary Caldwell and it has been a success up to this point. Good football has returned after a period in the wilderness. Should Caldwell continue in his present vein Sharpe will be hard-pressed to beat away offers from other clubs.

Sharpe will be the first to admit that the positive changes at the club are the work of a team approach. Caldwell, Jonathan Jackson, Matt Jackson, the recruitment team, the coaches plus all around have changed the direction of the club. But as chairman, Sharpe sets the direction and the tone. He also takes the flak when things don’t go according to plan.

Just three weeks ago the DW pitch was wrecked after a televised rugby match ruined what remained of a pitch suffering from climatic conditions and regular football use over recent months. Sharpe immediately acted upon it, getting a new pitch installed within a week, at considerable cost.He knew that a failure to do so would have been a serious threat to Latics’ promotion hopes, give their possession style of play.

David Sharpe continues to give Wigan Athletic supporters hope for a bright future. Moreover his bond with the supporters is way beyond that of most club chairmen. In his most recent Tweet he said:

As a thank you for your unbelievable away support this season, we will be putting on free coaches for the Swindon game! Be loud!!! #wafc 🔵⚪️

It has been a gesture well received by the fans.

When Dave Whelan stepped down we were not sure about what would happen next. How could anyone step into his formidable shoes? Sharpe was very much an unknown quantity at the time.

David Sharpe certainly deserves credit for the direction he has already given the club during his brief tenure which is approaching a year. One can only hope that the Football League’s youngest chairman can come close to equalling the achievements of his grandfather over the coming years.