nzlatic

If it's playing budget you can make it work comfortably. 3x 2k 3x 1.5k 3x 1.2k 6x 1.0k 8x 800 7x 500 That's a squad of 30 on totally made up salaries totalling 30k per week.

Gerrard's goodbye tweet sounded pretty final.

Does anyone know how many uefa pro licence qualified managers there are in league 1? Had a quick look but couldn't find the info.

McLeod from relegated Crawley please.

Deflated was the word I used yesterday. Having listening to his bbc interview he's certainly no tub thumper. But he did come across well, maybe last night in front of a baying crowd of fans who had no idea who he was the nerves kicked in!

People cancelling season tickets before he's even been unveiled at the news conference? How about listening to what he and the club have to say about it all? How about asking for a fans forum to have it explained? I'm disappointed of course, I'm very worried that this will now be a season of cutting managerial teeth rather than a better attempt at finishing in the top 6. But let's at least hear from everyone involved before toys start getting chucked out left, right and centre.

Thanks to everyone involved in running this. Cup semi final and just missing out on the top spots in the league. This was my 1990. Hopefully next year will be my 1991...

Don't give up yet!... @OfficialOAFC: DK: "It's a massive challenge. I am a massive risk. I will have a creative style of play and we will play attractive football."

He'll do a great LP interview and we'll all be up for it again.

For me it all comes down to his assistant. If it's Holden then that's a really inexperienced duo cutting their teeth in a season where we should be kicking on. New stand, not many 'big teams', and a core squad contracted for a while. Play off push is a possibility. But without any experience I can't see how we can maintain any sort of play off push. Points dropped against relegation fodder, against 10 men. Those are the sort of situation where experience gets you through.

Latics 1-1 Peterborough (ht 1-0) Jones 4005

"What I would want is the chance to be competitive in the division" Well the core of the squad is under contract and that squad had us in or around the play offs for the bulk of the season. The standard of the division should be pretty similar to this season really. So, as it stands now we've got a chance of being competitive in the division.

How many Latvian championships does Ashworth have?!

Exactly. They said there was no rush and that Holden had the job til the end of the season. It's not the end of the season yet so why people think the club should issue a statement whenever an internet rumour crops up is beyond me.

My prediction: Flattered to be linked Great club Not the right time Other commitments Holden's doing a great job New stand means bright future for whoever gets the job And so on.

Philliskirk is part of the current 1st team management. Why are the 2 styles so far apart? Especially in the last few games when a thrillless end of season had been secured and there was no pressure on the games.

Dowie has got a promotion from the Championship on his CV. He knows the club and the owners and his would probably be the only realistic 'feel good' appointment to help sell season tickets. He isn't the saviour, he'd be a gamble. But so would anyone else we could appoint, realistic or otherwise. If he's an actual possibility then there are enough pros there compared to the shortlisted 3 to make him the stand out choice in my opinion.

Walsall 2-1 Oldham (ht 1-1) Turner 3866

Yeah I meant that, Kusunga crossed for Ibehre. Philliskirk's goal against Scunthorpe I had down as being "inside right" rather than wide as Wilson's cross came from inside the penalty area. Ibehre vs Coventry and Forte vs Notts County (Brown cross from left) are our only proper open play headed goals of the season. That can't be normal!

Kusunga vs Coventry at home. To be fair to Wilson he's created a couple of goals from cutting the ball back from inside the box.

Despite the general trend of football moving away from wingers in a standard 442 I've noticed a lot of goals scored by teams at all levels still come from crosses from out wide. It doesn't feel like Latics score a lot of those types of goals so I thought I'd look back over the season and do a bit of video analysis. Out of the 59 goals we've scored this season only 5 have been created from out wide in open play. 4 from the left and 1 from the right. 46 came from the middle channel of the pitch (approximately the width of the penalty area). For me this goes a long way to explaining why we do so badly against teams at the bottom - most of whom will get men behind the ball and pack these areas. The other 8 came from set pieces. We've only scored 3 headers from open play all season and 1 of those was a second ball in after a corner cleared. Playing with 2 out and out wingers and a big man up front is probably a thing of the past but having variety and options to your game is key, and lack of this is for me one of our biggest failings this season.

As one of the finger pointers I think it's only right I explain myself... I didn't note 24hrs original post however I did look at it after lookersstandandy made a crack about picking Poleon for first goal, I remember this as I enjoyed the cricketing reference. Then 24hrs denied putting Poleon in the first place so I was a bit suspicious. However, I'm no David Walsh and I fully believe in the investigation of the mods and the word of a predictor who ruthlessly and relentlessly pursues anyone who commits even the slightest infringement. So congrats on a stupendous piece of predicting 24hrs, I'm going to have to start reading traffic reports if I want to try and claw my way back up the table...

Latics 2-1 Chesterfield (ht 1-0) Jones 4575

Out of the list "names" there's only rosler I think is realistic. Adkins, Davies etc won't want or need it. But I think Rosler is achievable if we put our best salesman on it.

Does it though? Only relegation would be seen as failure. Anything bottom half is par for the course and anything top half could be seen as a success. Surely anyone reasonable would back themselves to get us top half?