It can’t continue, can it*?
Played: Nine
Lost: Six
Won: Zero
Drawn: Two
For: Eight
Against: 21
By all stretches it’s an abysmal record, by some stretch the worst record that a Wigan Athletic manager will have had. Is there any way of us turning this round? The chances are becoming slimmer by the week. The Luton double header this week was must win, on both accounts.
Many said before the FA Cup match that they didn’t care whether we won the cup match as long as we won in the league. Well guess what, we lost both. So gone with it were the chances of a cup run that could have helped to lift the doom and gloom somewhat.
Also gone was the chance of a fair old pay day for progressing and the possibility of a decent draw in the fifth round if we’d have got past Grimsby. Also gone was the opportunity for a first win under Kolo Toure. After Tuesday it felt as though Saturday was the epitome of ‘must win’ there was no other way to describe it.
But once again this Latics side managed to not win, one must wonder whether we ever will achieve a win under Kolo Toure? It certainly doesn’t feel that way at the moment. I don’t want to keep mentioning Leam he’s gone and he isn’t coming back. But would the record above be the same if Leam was still in charge?
It’s become abundantly clear as the season has gone on that this set of players despite the heroics of last season are struggling badly at this level.
But despite all of that being said I simply can’t accept that we wouldn’t have fared as badly over the last nine games with the previous manager or a halfway house the assistant manager who when last in charge got our last win of the season (so far).
Those of us who tend to look at things with a glass half full perspective have tried to remain positive, tried to remain understanding of a novice board and novice management team negotiating a notoriously difficult league but even I’m struggling to find any silver linings at the moment.
Kolo Toure’s appointment has quickly become a disastrous appointment, not only similar to those of Owen Coyle, Malky Mackay and Warren Joyce that preceded the former Arsenal defender but worse.
This is no sleight on Kolo himself who I’m sure is hurting as much as we are and who I am sure is a lovely bloke and quite possibly a very good coach. But none of that sets him up for half a season managing a club on a shoe string budget in the Championship.
It’s a mistake Latics have made before with the appointment of Warren Joyce, it was bad under Joyce but even then we managed to pick up the odd win. At the minute we look as far away from a win as I do starting Centre Forward for us against Blackburn next week.
Someone made the comparison with Roberto Martinez earlier this week and that even when Latics lost heavily under Bob you could at least see the method in the madness and when it came together it was glorious. But this isn’t someone playing possession based football like Roberto, this is someone with no discernible style at all.
The Millwall and Sheffield United performances apart I’ve seen nothing in the Kolo Toure era that sets it apart from what went before, the only difference being that the players here previously would run through brick walls for their manager. That has now sadly disappeared.
I truly hope that I’m wrong and that we will go on a swashbuckling period of football (or at least pick up some results) ala 2011/12 and 2019/20 but I really fear for us. I fear for our future as a Championship club and I fear what comes next.
*Indeed it didn’t continue and two days after this article being written the board woke up to what everyone could see, that this failed experiment wasn’t working and wasn’t going to work. With club legend Shaun Maloney about to take the reigns it will mean another period of upheaval, upheaval that was barely imaginary when we beat Birmingham back in August. Still it’s never dull is it?
Sean Livesey
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