Would we have stayed up if...

“The inexperience was probably part of why we struggled. We asked for older players but the recruitment is done in a specific way with the aim to sell on in the future." - From the interview with Dale Tonge in the Chronicle.

 

Has to be the perfect storm for me. Very, very lucky with Wigan's situation. On the other side of the coin, if other teams lived within their means then we wouldn't have been anywhere near the bottom.

We got what we deserved at the end of the day and I hope we can consolidate our position next season

 

Daniel was left high and dry and should have left in the summer rather than have his record blotted by the dismantling of his defence. If we had been smart and kept Pinnock and Kieffer - or at least waited until the Jan to sell - I think we'd have been ok. COVID helped in my opinion. It changed the dynamic of a season that was only going to end in one way. Does anyone think we'd have won at QPR in normal circumstances? Wigan's deduction was a get out of jail card for the board. It must not paper over the mistakes made last close season.

 

If we had kept Stendel AND he had been backed in the way Struber was then I am confident that we would not have been worrying about Wigan having a points deduction to keep us up.

 

Radlinger was also only on a one year contract, so zero sell on value, which alongside his age, means he doesn't fit in with our general transfer policy at all.

Struber was able to identify a player with more experience, that fitted into our wage structure. I don't know if Stendel had done similar, and was refused or not.

 

in that case I think that without Wigan getting a 12 point deduction the rest irrelevant though you could give CV19 some credit for the timing if the admin.

 

Irrelevant? Give the club some credit. To get to the position where we were 3rd bottom and within 12 points was some achievement, considering where we were at Christmas.

 

3rd bottom is relegated so without the Wigan admin 100% irrelevant. We failed last season no point sugar coating it.

 

Eight points more than we managed in 17/18. Just a point from safety without Wigan’s misdemeanours. With a team full of inexperienced kids having sold our best player in Pinnock and a couple of other regulars. Countless games where we were the better side but didn’t get the result. Even during those last nine games, there was only Stoke where we were terrible. I’d argue we deserved to win the rest of them. Certainly the Luton and Leeds games should have been six points, not just the one.

So if we say we were lucky that Wigan were busted, then I say we were unlucky not to get a point or two more from just one more game.

 

We are members of a league that has rules. Based on that, we finished 4th bottom and stayed up, which is not failure.

There were failings though.

 

We knew Wigan we’re getting the points deduction 6 games before the end of the season. We knew what we had to do and did it.

 

Taking Wigans points deduction out of the equation then at Christmas we were 1 point off safety with a +4 goal difference compared to the team 4th bottom. when the season ended we were 1 point off safety with a +1 goal difference compared to the team 4th bottom.

 

Plus Luton were very lucky to get an extra few points. Lucky to keep 11 men on the pitch against Hull, then two own goals and a dodgy pen against Blackburn.

All ifs buts and maybes, and while Wigan's administration ultimately gave us a reprieve, maybe their board of directors shouldn't have been sanctioning deals that were being funded by someone they barely knew.

 

Lots and lots of variables in play, and in threads such as this, when canvassing opinions of various fans, you'll get different views on everything and that's great.

 

Based on Tonge's comments we know now that they requested more experienced players than were ultimately signed.

Based on our stated transfer model, the coaches aren't part of the shortlisting process other than at the start (identifying a type of player to fit the model) and at the end (choosing from shortlisted options). However, there's evidence to suggest that we've 'broken' that model on a limited basis with both Stendel and Struber. However, I think it's clear that Struber was given more leeway in this regard, perhaps as a recognition of it being 'last chance saloon' at the time or possibly because the club's relationship with Stendel was already breaking down, which is why I maintain that he wouldn't have been given the same opportunity to sign Sollbauer.

The conundrum for the club going forward is that doing so was so obviously successful in Sollbauer's case that it has perfectly demonstrated the point everyone was making last summer about the need for experience in the Championship. Whether or not it allows for similar signings on a limited basis going forward is something I'm intrigued to see as to how well we learn from the mistakes made last season.

I'm not entirely sure what went on with goalkeeper recruitment last summer, but signing two new keepers on permanent contracts when we had Walton and Greatorex on the books with (albeit limited) first team experience was a strange thing to do at the time. To an extent it created the issues through the season where neither of them cemented down the first choice role.

 

Every club in the league can catalogue hard luck stories where they didn't get the results they deserve. If you play 46 games you'd expect that to iron out.

 

Another big factor in the 'if, buts and maybes' around our season is the painful gap between Stendel's sacking on 8th October and Struber's appointment on 20th November. Living through that at the time, with effectively no communication coming from the club, was one of the most frustrating elements of the season, and the lack of urgency through the whole process (from an outside perspective) felt like a signal, at the time, that we'd written the season off.

From memory there were two international breaks in that period (albeit one of them was very early in the process), but what impact could those additional weeks with a full-time coach in charge have had on our season? Could Struber have hit the ground running more quickly if he'd had the benefit of the second international break to work with the squad? How would we have performed if Stendel had stayed in charge and had the benefit of the earlier international break?

It feels like an eternity since then but, if we were looking back now at the season from the position of having been relegated, I'd say that those weeks were a critical element of why we fell short.

 

Yes the goalkeeper who hardly ever caught a football wish it had have been

 

Voted for the second option.

I love Stendel but I think we were a bit too “gung-ho”, particularly with our full backs.

It’s hard to predict what would’ve happened without COVID but I definitely believe it helped us.

Struber has done a very good job and I hope the Watford links prove to be false.