nzlatic

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?

I would be disappointed not to get someone with a more impressive track record. But saying that, I'm not against Yates, would definitely prefer him to the other 2, as much as I like Holden. Paul Cook had a pretty average record at Accrington before joining Chesterfield so probably didn't inspire many of their fans when they appointed him.

It's strange that out of the highest calbire of applicants we've ever had 2 of the short list haven't even managed in England before and the other has some league 2 play off experience. I know the budget excuse gets used a lot to explain why we don't get anything better but out of all the out of work managers is there no credible candidate with league 1 or 2 promotion on their CV who fancies it? Looking at the situation positively, League 1 doesn't have many big hitters next year, we have a new stand and the majority of our best players are on long term contracts. If someone like Rosler for example would see it as a step down or that we didn't have the budget, could he not be persuaded that we have a real shot of top 6 next year and taking a team our size into the play offs would be a big plus on any CV. I'd be interested to know if we've approached any managers of good calibre and tried to sell the club, vision, long term plan, latest hashtag, whatever. Like we would if we're trying to attract players who might normally be looking above us. Or whether we've just decided to work with the applications we received.

Yates looks the most attractive option left. Mission accomplished.

None of them is Rosler. Holden, Yates and Ashworth from a pic of the chron back page

I saw Poleon too. There's some funny business going on here! I smell another Oprah special in a few years.

Coventry 2-1 Latics (HT 1-1) Turner 7408

Bit surprised by that, there hasn't been much in the way of prospective manager sightings at games, so the fact that he was there with Hardy and making notes I would have thought would be worthy of reporting. Personally going off his record I think it'd be a cracking appointment and right at the top end of what I thought we could realistically get. He was a missed penalty away from having a League One promotion on his CV. I doubt there are many other applicants that have that. I'd be very surprised if we did get him.

Latics 1-3 sheff utd (HT 0-2) Jones 6594

I don't normally go in for conspiracy theories, but here's one... Corney was perfectly happy to not get promoted this year, hence the Holden til the end of the season option and despite all the talk otherwise, too many of the players looking pretty disinterested. If the income for the new stand doesn't kick in til 2016/17 then we'd almost certainly come straight back down if we went up this season. Maybe the ideal situation is to consolidate this season, then get a new manager in the summer, have a promotion push in a still average looking league, steady crowd increases and then Championship in 2016/17 when we might have a fighting chance with increased income? That's probably much more in hope than expectation though!

We controlled the game in the middle 3rd of the pitch. We were totally ineffective in the final 3rd and didn't really look like scoring. And we were very shaky in our defensive 3rd, they could have scored more. We tried to pass it through the middle when they had 9 behind the ball and got nowhere. Brown saw a lot of the ball in space on the right but almost always came back inside with a short pass. Not blaming the lad - he had no options outside. There was little movement up front. I hope the subs were precautionary for injury reasons because I've no idea how Wilkinson stayed on. He looked totally disinterested, every run or challenge just looked like he was going through the motions. He may play well in the big games but in the 2 I've seen (Yeovil and Crawley) he's been pretty poor. He was very lucky to get away with giving the ref the :censored: sign at Yeovil. Positives - Jones always wanted to get involved, so did Winchester, and Kelly did well to say he's been out for a while. But most of the others played like they had one eye on Ibiza. Wishlist - McLeod. Would love a striker like that. Dominated our defence, always looking to get involved, constant threat.

Crawley 1-1 Latics (HT 0-0) Jones 2680

It feels like 1994 all over again. Devastated. Well played and good luck to the finalists.

Latics 1-2 bristol City (HT 0-1) Jones 4308

Yep, I fled that remote paradise a few years ago. I don't fancy changing my username though, as much as I like the lad I don't want to people to think I'm committing myself to Barnsley's player of the year 2016.

I was hoping reading this thread would help me decide where to send my vote. Not been much help, but interesting reading! It'd be nice if politics was about confident leaders with solid policies and clear explanation about how the country would benefit, rather than seemingly being about trying to be the least :censored: option to the highest number of people. A comical spoil is looking the most appealing option by far.

This is the key for me. Percentage of black players is irrelevant when comparing to number of managers. The percentage of qualified black coaches is the important stat. Why this rarely gets talked about when the racism card is played is beyond me.

I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the favourites tag. It's my first season and I'm spreading myself thin battling on 2 fronts.

Money? Bigger crowds?