Well, well looks like we have another must win game on the horizon. There is of course a counter argument which states that there is no such thing as a “must win” game when there are twenty games left.
However, the only team we are getting any closer to is the one team who are below us and it is feasible that we could be not two but three wins off safety unless we beat Huddersfield.
Nevertheless I came off the ground last week with a slightly renewed sense of optimism that the rot had been stopped, even though we evidently rode our luck with a couple of fortuitous goal line clearances.
Yet that is all we have to wish for the remainder of this season, that glimmer of hope that this team can somehow drag itself up and out of the mire. How on earth did it come to this?
That a team who were among the favourites for promotion are sitting haplessly and hopelessly in the bottom three with a squad who looks to have very little desire or inclination to get themselves out of it?
There seems to be a mood of resignation amongst the fans. Many whom were consoling themselves a couple of years ago thinking about trips to Bolton and Blackpool are now saying “oh well Fleetwood and Preston away should be good fun”. A couple more years at the current rate and we’ll be renewing friendships with Chorley and Altrincham I imagine!
See I suppose, I’m not helping matters with gallows humour like that but we take our lead from the players on the field and the noises coming out of the club and apart from trotting a player out each week to tell us how hard they are working to get out of this position, the silence is deafening.
The Football Rich List has just been published for this year and it seems Premier League clubs are wealthier than ever given the eye watering sums simply for taking part in the competition.
Of course, it’s a false economy as so many of those millions go straight back out in wages and transfer fees. Yet it seems that Wigan Athletic’s attempt to drink at the top table once more has passed and we now looking to offload as many players as possible to try and balance the books. Who can blame the club as we’re hardly getting value for money out of them.
Yet our fate is in their hands. Those eleven shirts that we just want to see a bit of pride in the return of a winning mentality. That’s not too much to ask is it?
First published in the Wigan Evening Post’s 12th Man column Friday 23rd January 2015.
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