At what point does this become terminal? I’m sure I wasn’t alone thinking that on Wednesday evening. After the inevitable L was posted alongside Wigan 0-1 Stoke.
Once again a half decent performance was rewarded with nothing, but perhaps it’s all we deserved? I’m not sure, all I do know is Blackburn apart Autumn has been a horror show for Wigan Athletic.
Since we somehow lost against Hull in a game we were leading we’ve only managed to take points during that win over Blackburn.
The home performances in particular – Cardiff, Middlesbrough, Stoke have been distressing for various different reasons. Wednesday felt like the ideal time to start righting some wrongs and getting back on track, the league’s so tight that a win would have propelled us to heady heights of mid table despite our awful run.
But instead we’re now facing going in to the World Cup break rooted to the bottom three.
Now that doesn’t mean certain relegation come May but it does make it much harder for us to get to that magic point mark to ensure a second season of Championship football.
We’ve lost ground to the teams around us because we’ve failed to pick up any points in the games against those sides, the only team we somehow managed to earn points against is currently sitting towards the top of the league.
Football is a fickle game and it seems that many have already made up their mind about this manager and indeed this squad of players who only a few months ago we were toasting as one of the best set of players we’ve had in a generation for what they achieved last year.
I’m surprised how quickly many have turned on the manager, given what happened last season but then again football is indeed a results and entertainment business.
What happened last week goes out of the window in this case, let alone what the management achieved on and off the pitch last season.
A three year deal for the manager complicates matters and I would be absolutely amazed if the owners were to take the plunge and get rid of him, if that did somehow happen who could come in to improve our situation?
Although i’ll defend Leam equally we need to see some changes from him – too often we set up in a very defensive manner which doesn’t match the level of side we’re playing.
There’s valid question marks over his reluctance to feature some of the summer signings and we often look like we’re playing within ourselves.
Injuries as always have played a major part in this season’s dip in form, none more so than Callum Lang. I didn’t realise how much we relied on him but Luton, Huddersfield and Birmingham showed his impact and we’ve missed that no doubt.
The only point I would argue in the summing up of Wednesday’s result is that did anybody expect anything different this season? The aim is for us to finish outside of that bottom three, if we manage that by May (as big a stretch as that may be) the season will have been a success.
The frustrating thing at the minute is the league isn’t that much stronger than us, and we could and should be doing better than we are.
Swansea represents an opportunity, we need a result from somewhere let’s hope it’s from South Wales.
Sean Livesey
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