Match day thread. Wigan

I agree we are a decent head coach away from being the finished product a bit like England are a decent coach away from being World and European Champions

 

We are not convincing at home are we ,and have not been all season this is what will cost us this season I,m afraid.

 

He'll still be here end of season, watch this space.

 

He's not going anywhere.

 

That's hardly in contention is it. Many want him gone, don't think anyone thinks it'll happen though. He'll be here next season regardless of where we finish.

 

Any new players brought in aswell as being competent footballers need to be at least 6 ft 3 tall and proper units

 

He should,t be if he fails to get us in the top 6 he should be gone in my opinion.

 

Just to be a pedant, we finished the year in 7th.

Agree with the rest, we're not going up this season. I will caveat that by saying, depends what business we do in January.

 

I think Collins is doing an excellent job.

 

Genuinely terrible that, second half especially. I mean really, really poor. Wigan absolutely schooled us after halftime. Lucky to hold on for a point.

 

Wigan played it around for the most part quite similarly to us. But smarter and a bit more swiftly.

We are too ponderous and predictable to be a good side. Too slow and stale. I repeat, we quickly need a decent right wing back along with a forward running attacking central midfielder. This is far more important than a new centre back.

The coach can take no credit for his input today, I'm afraid.

 

I agree folk that are saying the centre back will solve our problems it might defensively ,but there is something else lacking ,somebody in midfield with pace that can cause teams problems that’s why we are so predictable at home.

 

This with bells on

 

Some of your points are valid but......we wouldn’t and never will be a top 2 team whilst we have no quality pace and height at centre half......choose who we had as manager, can’t you see that?......Pep couldn’t make a silk purse out of the sows ear of a defence that we have got mate, .....

 

I agree mate we need pace all over pitch especially defence and midfield, unfortunately only Williams appears to have it and he’s having a bit of a mare having to cover centrally instead of utilising what pace he has out wide right

 

At Peterborough the other night the midfield were driving forward at every opportunity, today at times I thought we tried to play too intricately which made us look ponderous and not many ideas.

 

My argument is that even with the defenders we’ve got, the defence itself could and should have been less of a liability - but more importantly, with the ability we have in midfield and attack, we ought to be imposing ourselves on games a lot more, and winning more games.

If we were playing well, scoring, passing it round well but dropping points here and there due to defensive errors I’d grant him that. But we’re not. The errors are still there, the dropping of points is still there, and we are often garbage front to back. Most of the clubs in our division would give their right arm for the midfield and forwards we have. Under Collins they often look pretty average.

It’s all well and good giving him a free pass because we sold Mads and Kitching, as well as losing Bobby Thomas. What has he done as manager to improve anything? His answer has been to be cautious, overly defensive, playing with no tempo or proper identity at home. We have been crap in the main. Even the games we’ve won have rarely been that good. We’ve not had a good game - not a complete one. The odd half here and there. We’ve lost one game in 14, we are in the playoffs, and for a home game on New Year’s Day we got under 12000 home fans in - and they were booed off. I don’t condone that - not helpful - but you can see why some would.

Today, as I said earlier, was unacceptable. That second half performance we’ve seen so many times. We’d have arguably been better off if Cole hadn’t scored just before half time, as they might have got into second gear at least and not been shackled so much from the outset.

It is depressingly predictable how the second half of a game will pan out if we lead at half time. Today the second half was particularly terrible and was garnished by the absolutely mind-numbingly baffling decision to bring on Max Watters.

Remember today we were playing Wigan Athletic, not a high flying side. Even if they’d not had points deducted they’d be mid-table, no more. And they could, possibly should, have got three points from us today. They missed good chances in the first half, then missed an absolute sitter and had one ruled out - haven’t seen it back but it looked a generous decision to give a foul on Roberts to my eye - in the second half. It could have been a 3-1 or 4-1 drubbing.

 

I share your dissatisfaction with performances mate but I would imagine in Collins defence he could claim at mid term the table doesn’t lie as they say and we sitting 6th.....continue like that and we are in playoffs obviously......I’d take that now and hopefully get luckier than last year

 

First off it should be noted that Wigan aren’t a bad side. If they didn’t have points taken off then they only start today’s game 2 positions below us.

I thought our biggest issue was our quality of passing. Plenty of times players were picking the right option but just not putting the right weight on the ball. The biggest culprit of this today was Kane. If he gets the right weight of pass to Cadden & we go 2 up then I imagine it’s game over.

The other issue for me was O’Keeffe down the right. I’ve never seen a wing back run backwards or come inside as much. He’s got to attack the defender more.

When you’re up against a packed defence & they’re well organised it needs a player, more than likely a wing back in our system to take a player on. Cadden does it on the other side so it’s clearly not a tactical thing. It just needs a bit of bravery. We nearly got something when Williams did it in the first half.

Williams obviously messed up big time for what should have been a Wigan goal but his pace also got us out of the **** 3 times by my reckoning today which again highlights the need to have a centre back with pace in there. We need a pacey centre back in the building asap.