It’s been a very long time since I have seen the fans get so angry after a defeat at home. After the final day survival at Stoke almost a year ago, many fans thought that the club would push on and be in a position in the table similar to sides like Swansea are at present. Pre season was full of hope and excitement at the prospect of seeing a team push on from the run of good form at the end of the 2010-2011 campaign and begin to settle down under Roberto Martinez in the top flight. Things started off in a decent manner, 5 points from the first 3 games saw things looking good but that’s where it started to go wrong. Fans were hoping that the run we saw at the end of last season would propel us up the table this time around but it didn’t happen. Instead we find ourselves bottom yet again, it’s becoming a bit boring now.
I ask any people who are backing Martinez, is 1 win at home good enough? When Bobby took over, he spoke of challenging for European football and being allowed 3 years to make the team his own. Well, we are nearly at the end of that 3 year period and we sit bottom of the Premier League after a gutless performance against a side we should have been hungry to beat. I'm not saying I'm expecting European football but at the minimum I would have liked to see us have a boring safe season, A little sign of progression would be nice. The two goals Swansea scored today were brilliant goals but that is inexcusable for what happened at the stadium today.
I think everyone knows that Bobby picked the wrong team today. Why on earth was Hugo Rodallega, Victor Moses and Momo Diame on the bench, yet Conor Sammon, who has one Premier League goal in a year, started? James McCarthy was below par once again and Jordi Gomez looks as though he has no confidence at all. If it wasn’t for the fans calling for Rodallega to be brought on midway through the second half, Ben Watson would have been brought on, what kind of a reaction would that have created among many of the home fans?
For me, that was not good enough and I’m sure for the vast majority of you it wasn’t either. When fans are paying good money to watch a side who hasn’t won at home since August and to keep backing the team during a difficult 6-7 months, today would have been the final straw for many. 19,001 was the attendance today and with Swansea bringing 2,500 fans, that’s a very good crowd for us. There are still a few who are defending Bobby and I can understand why, he is such an iconic figure for Wigan and is very good at putting his point of view across but the fact of the matter is the results have not been good enough, the fans have been extremely patient and wanted everything to work out well but 1 home win all season is most certainly a step backwards.
Dave Whelan’s called a meeting withMartinez on Monday morning which should be very interesting; especially given Roberto is to attend a fans forum in the evening. There are going to be many answers expected from a lot of questions the fans have.