Crestfallen is not the word. At least Roberto took the rap for Saturday’s abject performance. Without sounding like a retro school teacher: you let the fans down, you let the team down but most of all you let yourself down. How on earth do we pick ourselves up from that?
The sad thing is that attempting to write about Wigan Athletic week after week veers from a cry for help to green shoots of positivity depending on the previous week’s result and the reason for that is undoubtedly because we have a team that is so wildly inconsistent.
However, the lows, whereas not as disastrous as in Bob’s first season are certainly not pointing to any lessons learned two and a half years on as losing 2-0 at home to Swansea hurt equally as hard as any of those big defeats to bigger clubs simply because we failed to compete and got the whole game plan completely wrong.
Where to next? Well Norwich evidently. The fall out from last weekend has calmed somewhat and I’ve never quite worked out whether the majority of Latics fans are behind Bobby or want him out, or even whether there is an even split. It depends on what you’re reading or who you’re listening to at any particular time.
There are angry voices in pubs and on message boards who write the most derogatory comments about someone whom, whether you approve of his footballing methods or not is still a very decent and honest man, evidently struggling to get the best out of the resources he’s got.
Speaking to many of my fellow fans around Wigan, he has undoubtedly lost a lot more faith from the fans after strange selections and a weak display against Swansea in a game where we expect to get three points, or at least be very unlucky not to rather than being masters of our own destruction.
It’s clear that the pendulum has swung away from Team Bobby for the time being and only a couple of energised, top class performances at Carrow Road and at home to West Brom will see that support swing back. We are still only two points adrift, and there will be more twists and turns to come but any more dross like that on Saturday and the home support, far from being the club’s biggest asset will be turning off in droves I’m afraid.
First published in the Wigan Evening Post’s 12th Man column Wednesday 7th March
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