Light at the end of the tunnel or more pain on the way?

You could ask the question of Wigan Athletic both on and off the pitch at the moment.

After another week of little information on the takeover front the administrators confirmed late on Friday that they had granted another extension to the exclusivity period.

We were told that significant progress had been made with Wigan Council on the Stadium lease and that all paperwork requested by the EFL had now been submitted.

So it seems our future is now in the hands of the EFL, as I write this on Thursday afternoon no update on our situation has been forthcoming from the Football League and indeed there’s no real prospect of one coming this week.

I share the frustration of those angry at the EFL for not yet signing of Jose Miguel Garrido Cristo and the rest of the potential ownership team but we quite rightly criticised the EFL among others for not doing due diligence on Next Leader Fund Ltd and Au Yeung earlier in the year. If that means them going through this potential deal with a fine toothcomb so be it.

Back on the pitch and Saturday truly showed what those who have killed our club have done, a youthful Latics side were completely dominated by Oxford on Saturday afternoon. Oxford manager Karl Robinson said that his side could have been six or seven ahead at half-time, and he’s right but I wonder if Karl realised what kind of side he was facing during his gloating.

The pain felt quite raw on Saturday, our young lads are doing more than anyone can ask of them. But without help from more senior players it simply isn’t enough.

When in any normal season you may blood, two or three youngsters max we’ve a whole team. They’re talented footballer’s and all will have bright futures in the professional game. What we’re missing is a bit of guile, a bit of extra nous that inevitably comes with experience.

As disappointing as Saturday’s defeat was Tuesday’s match with struggling Bristol produced a performance we could all be proud of. It wasn’t a win, and without further signings in the near future won’t be enough to stop us dropping in to the bottom tier but it was a match to make us proud again.

Twelve academy graduates formed our eighteen man squad on Tuesday night and that battling point will do them a world of good. But on the other side it’s now a startling twelve matches without a win.

When you consider in that time we’ve lost Danny Fox, Nathan Cameron, Kal Naismith, Lee Evans, Gary Roberts and Viv Solomon-Otobar for one reason or another you can see exactly why we’re in the position we are.

Added to that list on Tuesday night was Joe Garner who has left the club by mutual consent to head to join Robbie Fowler’s East Bengal in India. Joining the aforementioned Danny Fox and Anthony Pilkington who headed over to India in the Summer.

Frankly no one can blame him at all considering the state we’re in, but now we’re left without our leading scorer indeed until Solomon-Otobar is fit again we’ve no senior forwards in the squad. It never rains but it pours – well in Wigan we’ve been in Monsoon season for the last five and a half months now.

No match this week so all eyes once again for the umpteenth time are on the EFL and Begbies Traynor, is it too much to hope this living nightmare will be over soon? Probably.

Sean Livesey

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