nzlatic

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?

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