Gary Mac Legend

You think I'm knee-jerking over 24 hours on, by repeating what I said back in early August?

Tell me what you know that suggests I'm wrong

Oh, we should have beaten them. We were fucking diabolical. It was painful to watch, I wanted Rafa out that night. But rationally thinking afterwards, I realised no-one near his calibre would touch this job with a 10 foot barge pole. If only a lot of our fans and ex-players had thought of that as well. I'm sure Cecil and co knew what they were doing from the off. As for my last paragraph, I'm not wrong, we have glaring issues. One aerially dominant centre back who the manager doesn't rate. No width whatsoever, no service into the box. All in all, a poor defence with the exception of Agger. A manager who's tactically naive at this level, and is out of his depth. This season, will be worse than last.

If we had Torres against Fulham, our chances of finding a goal or two would have been vastly increased. But they had 8 men in their box at least at all times. We couldn't break them down, when we did, Schwarzer pulled off some excellent saves. If we went to Craven Cottage and stuck 10 men behind the ball, we wouldn't have to break a sweat to get a draw. Like against Brum, that's probably Roy's gameplan. Shows Wigan are more than capable of beating top sides. They beat better sides than us. You don't think a congested fixture list and injuries affect a teams performance? Give over. I more than accept our failings from last season, it was horrific. What I don't accept, is the club bombarding out a top class manager of six years service, after one poor season, then bringing in a far, far inferior replacement, then fans affording Roy excuses that couldn't be afforded for Rafa last season. Listen, tell me it's four games all you want, I'll tell you that our current manager has achieved fuck all in a career spanning well over 20 years. Read that back again, that tells me we're in more than a spot of bother. Rafa's tactics were baffling, but 4-4-2 away to Man City!? Lucas and Poulsen at home to WBA, away to Trabsponzor and away to Brum!? Fuck me. Near enough everything I've predicted about Hodgson to date from the moment he was confirmed has followed. I predict we won't generally improve much more over the course of the season.

Cerebral.

Unless Meireles can single handedly win every aerial ball that comes into our box, cover for Johnson at RB when he makes his inevitable errors, charge down both our flanks and whip decent crosses into the box providing us with some width, all along with his job as a box to box midfielder in the middle of the park, then we're still in a lot of trouble.

If you were in the Paddock for the Fulham game, then you really cocked up using it as an example. Any idiot can tell you we bossed that game from start to finish, but they were incredibly hard to break down in the box credit to them, and Schwarzer pulled off some great saves. You don't see how the congested Christmas fixture list and early injuries to Gerrard and Torres could at all affect our performance? Contrast that to today, where we're a month into the season? Arsenal did batter us, we got thoroughly outplayed and forced into our box required a couple of outstanding saves by Reina as well. Better men? Have a laugh, they bossed us. We didn't deserve a draw. I'm not surprised you couldn't care less about how many times Arsenal passed the ball about before scoring. It proves your initial comment was misinformed and off the mark, therefore it follows that you would try to ignore it. Wigan also beat Chelsea and Arsenal in that season you speak of. Yes we did have good moments last season, so far we haven't one good moment this season. I'd rather a few than what we've seen thus far. And don't tell it's going to get much better, worn out cliche. The problems are there for us to see.

We were very low on confidence and got rattled by an own goal. We still dominated Arsenal for a good 50 minutes. This year we got battered by them from the first whistle to the last. We controlled significant portions of it. Lost only due to some defensive errors. It's not like getting bossed by WBA at home now is it? I will do, they were meaningless. We had nothing to gain or lose no matter what the outcome. Football is entertainment though, and football they saw. That's how Rafa's teams play. Slow build up, possession based. Fuck off I'm deluded, I was in the Kop for that game, you probably weren't. Sorry if we didn't smash it 50 yards up the pitch every time we had the ball. We attacked and attacked, Schwarzer was in great form that day, there was no way we were getting past that Fulham defence. They had nothing in the way of an attack. Look at Arsenal against Bolton, how many passes leading up to Vela's goal? Be assured, we controlled that game and were the only team looking for a goal. Wigan are easily a superior side to WBA. Reading was atrocious, but we had a battered, exhausted squad by that point after a heavily congested Christmas period. This team is fresh. People are asking themselves why is our squad better than last year, yet we're actually worse?

The same Arsenal game where we dominated until an own goal that rattled us? The same Lyon performance where we also dominated until we got undone by some sloppy defending at the end? Chelsea and Fiorentina were meaningless games, nothing to play for. Fulham? Are you being fucking serious? We attacked for 90 minutes and they had 10 men behind the ball!? You're a fucking joker mate to say the least.

Anfield last season. Name the other two. We also had our entire squad yesterday bar Joe Cole.

Spot on. It's a comedy appointment.

To be fair to him, it's mainly Gold Members who are the worst on here. Bunch of cunts behind their keyboards, who think because they pay, they have a right to be sanctimonious cunts.

He has been playing well enough. His form isn't the problem, it's his style now he's getting on a bit, we're defending far too deep. It's dangerous, as we're getting pressed, dominated and going to sooner or later start conceding heavily, on a regular basis. We got away with it yesterday.

Jovanovic seems shit scared to get to the by-line and whip one in. Johnson seems shit scared to take his man and whip a cross in. Lucas seems shit scared, to do anything. Carra seems shit scared to venture out of our box Our Centre Halfs seem shit scared when the ball enters the box aerially.

I must be one of very few, who actually doesn't care about our playing style. I don't care if we're negative, boring, counter attacking, Allardyce style or play like Guardiola's Barca. As long as we're effective, we win games we should comfortably, don't get dominated especially not by WBA at home. None of that is happening, we're shit, we're shit in midfield, our defence is shit, our attack is useless!? It's not the squad either, it's how we're performing as a team, which has been diabolical so far.

If you don't want us to defend so deep, we have to drop Carra. Johnson also needs to be dropped for a few games, give Kelly a run, at least he's in form. Pacheco and Babel should start our next game after the Mancs as our wide players. Pace and Creativity there, both can take a man on, can get the ball into the box, and offer some width. If Lucas and Poulsen start together against the Mancs, I'm not gonna fucking bother watching. Roy's still trying to find the balance, but I don't see too much improvement on this. It's gonna be a long, gruelling season, which will probably stress you out as much as last.

Shelvey? Wilson? Sterling? Prick.

How many times were we comprehensively outclassed for about 75 minutes and relied on having a truly world class goalkeeper producing world class saves again and again to give us that draw? How many of those times did our manager come away proud with himself that we'd managed to cling (yes 'cling') onto the draw?

Seriously? Someone now try and convince me the FA isn't corrupt towards Slur. What's worse, Roy is one of Slur's little pets, seeing them all chummy before and after we get mauled will make me even more sick. At least him and Rafa had nothing but contempt for each other, I liked that.

I'd like to see Agger and the Greek together.

People quoting our previous draws with Brum are being ignorant or naive. In those previous draws, we've generally dominated possession, created plenty of chances but haven't been clinical enough. Yesterday, we were played off the park, they were disappointed with the draw, we were lucky to escape with it. That's the 4th game in a row this season we've been outplayed. It's worrying beyond belief, we have the scum at OT next weekend.

I've seen all your games this season. He's come up against one decent team so far, which was us opening day. He was anonymous for most of the game. He's had two decent games, Blackpool and Bolton. Two relegation scrappers and both were at the Emirates. Do you not think you're getting slightly carried away with these two performances?

Depends, who the fuck is asking

I'm sure Houllier polishes his medal every night.

Give Babel a chance? Pacheco to.