Nohairdontcare

Superb. A much needed boost.

Can someone please hang around a bank until they meet AL who just happens to be there with a truckload of money that he’ll let them watch him lodge, to pay for Championship quality lawnmower fuel, please? Then I can get back to trying to forget about Latics for a while until next season. I try... but fail. So someone please go to the bank then teeet about it and we’ll all be grand.

I think a Latics tour of Dublin, Cork and Galway is long overdue.

At least the club’s PR has improved. Couldn’t get much worse though.

What happens with the pitch this summer will be a good indication of how much cash AL has at his disposal...

Relegation feels awful. The real fear that we’re a rotten shambles behind the scenes is something I’ve been trying to block out, with blind hope that it’s surely not that bad... But increasingly I think the fall is only beginning. And that feels worse than relegation. If our new owner is a bit bonkers but has wads of cash, I can handle that. If he’s a bit bonkers and hasn’t the price of a pint and programme, then I think we’re goosed.

It would cost nothing and be good PR for the club to say something. Id expect it will tomorrow. Probably not the worst idea to let the dust settle a bit first.

Quite a few people weren’t happy to hear the Chron folded.

Now would be a good time to run it so. I can understand why he might want to hold off until we've actually been relegated - people can turn on him for just doing his job. But if there's ever a time to run a piece that'll reveal the extent of the shambles, it's now.

Top seven would do wouldn't it? Another positive...

I've never been to a League Two game - so when I make my yearly trip over next season I'll have seen Latics play in all four divisions. Not sure that's a good thing!

Cheers, I thought as much... I might wait a few days before I make a decision on it. I'm still gutted after yesterday - and in fairness I do (usually) enjoy the match commentary...

I’ve a monthly direct debit subscription. Might be a reaction to what happened yesterday but I had a look at how I might go about cancelling it. Maybe I’m a bit slow but I couldn’t see how to do it on the app... I would have more time for the service if it was more open about how to opt out.

Is queasy an emotion?

A possibility is that for some reason the paper suddenly finds that it has two pages to fill and not much to fill it with. There’s a few paragraphs somewhere on us and our struggles, they realise we’re in for a final day survival battle, so pad it out with dubious information. Possibly from multiple sources, and dodgy sources, and Internet forums. It hooks the piece on Wellens as he’s the manager and is the most recognisable face at the club. Pages filled, the sport desk can head off to the pub and forget about it. Some lines might be based on fact, some might be stretched, and some completely wrong. (It isn’t unheard of for reporters to intentionally put in incorrect information as that would allow a genuine in the know source to say it wasn’t them as they know X, Y and Z not to be true). Or the reporter is just incorrect. And that might be all there is to it.

Why on earth would a national newspaper be influenced by Rochdale enough to give two pages to an attempt to disrupt us? That’s bonkers.

The problem the local journalists face is that if they start asking 'difficult' questions they would be frozen out overnight - and that'd be the end of them earning a wage to pay the mortgage etc. It's possible that they would pick up info and pass it on to national publications - but the chances of Latics gossip making big news in national papers is obviously slim. So it wouldn't be worth their while.

Very possible. The main reason I suggested it's a player is because I'd hope Wellens is focused on Saturday regardless... I'd hope that - but obviously it might not be the case.

Yeah, the obvious spin on it makes me think it's someone who's disgruntled - I'd say a player - tipping off the hack. The hack writes a piece up nosing it on Wellens. And the paper's sport ed puts it over a spread to fill pages. None of it is going to be news to any of the players in my opinion, so it's unlikely to have any bad influence on Saturday. We just need to win the bloody game.

Nothing earth shattering in it. Usual trouble at mill.

That’s a bit harsh. It mightn’t be a great standard but I wouldn’t go as far as saying “not far off a pub league”.

Tonight's the night I've gone from "ah it'll all be fine" to "oh crap - looks like we're done for".

Interesting... I've a feeling we're going to learn a lot about our new owner over the next couple of months.

One didn't know what the whip was or how to use it.

Lee could do with ditching the motivational phrases too, in my opinion. True, both Lee and Darren started off at Latics - but I think that's where the comparisons end.