With our history of appointing former managers. This could happen . Speaking of former managers , it looks like Neil Critchley is now odds on . Good appointment if true.
No thanks, he's not exactly done much since he left us apart from get someone else's Palace team promoted. Recruiting former managers hasn't worked well for us recently with Simonth Grathon and Michael Appleton both having awful 2nd spells. Having said that Ditchley looks like he's the favourite for the job, so that's another ex manager
Quite glad to see reading back, not in a harsh way as i live in west london just a closer away day for me, i wouldnt be surprised if Wigan go down again if they keep failing to pay their players, but then again karma is a B*tch as they laughed and hoped we would fold when we was in that position.
Sad for Reading to be back but with everything thats gone on at the club for the last few years the ownership changes, the failure to address the financial plan, the point deduction and the revolving door of managers I'm really not surprised. It will be an interesting next season as bouncing straight back certainly isn't a 'given' this is a tough league to bounce from
Wigan docked a further 4 points & atm start the season on minus 8 points . That's probably 1 relegation spot already taken .
They'll be lucky to avoid admin the way they are going, owner is just a liar, and their situation is completely down to him, mainly lying about funding. Unfortunately they do.have a knack of wriggling out of these situations, so don't write them off.
You have to feel for the players and fans in this situation,The EFL must take some of the blame after not properly investigating the owner's finances.
That is the minimum they deserve. I feel for the fans, but that club has been a damn disgrace for a long time now. After nearly going out of business & being relegated to League Two 2 years ago, to somehow splashing the cash and winning the title last season. It’s disgusting. The EFL are w*nkers for allowing this.
Surprised Dave Whelan hasn’t had something to say about this after all those years building Wigan up to punch above their weight and now it’s basically back to square one .
You're not wrong about the wiggling , think they had 5/6 contracted players & a manager who'd never managed last time they tipped up in this division & went up , it's football , anything can happen but if you're in debt or trying to live outside of your means it'll come back & bite you sooner or later .
I don't wish for any club to fold, even Wigan. I do hope they drop into the conference where they belong though
I agree, i hate the Red Dogs but would never want them to fold, to see them in the conference would be fun though.
You hide your hatred so well though, Dave. As for Wigan, incredible to think they were in a position once upon a time to be able to poach Steve Bruce from Birmingham. Seems a distant memory now that they could spend £2M on a shit manager and now they haven't got a pot to piss in..
You do know he broke his leg in a cup final don’t you They tend to keep him out of the limelight these days as whenever he speaks there’s usually a whiff of racism or some other un pc undertone( albeit mild)
Yeah club has been totally mismanaged by the owners from top to bottom for years. From the Russian fraud Zingarevich to the invisible Chinese owner we now have Dai Yongge and the Thai's in between. The 3 years of financial embargoes have finally done for us, we did try to comply with the business plan the EFL set out but it was very difficult as we couldn't sell on the players who were signed on huge wages. It's been years of wrong decisions at board level. I'm cautiously optimistic for next season as we seem to be getting more clarity from the Director of Football (Mark Bowen) and there seems to be more of a clear plan going forward. There are strong rumours that Chris Wilder is set to join the club (bookies odds tally up with this) which I'd be pretty happy with, yes his recent spell this season at Boro wasn't great but his record speaks for itself having had multiple promotions including at League One level with Sheffield United and obviously then getting them promoted to the Prem and having a pretty decent season at that level. There are also links to his time at Sheff U who have recently joined Reading so that might be an added draw along with the potential for a long term project to get back up the leagues. Nothing concrete as yet but hoping this gets done soon. All the best to Newcastle! Brilliant season, Great to see you back in the Champions League. Such a top set of fans, some of the best I've seen at the Madstad in the Prem days, great numbers and always loud and very supportive of your team and not just spouting hate at the other team's fans which makes a change.
Sir John must wonder how things would have turned out if the Zingarovich 'rich dad broke son' fiasco hadn't happened and then the asset stripping Thai fiasco afterwards was salt in the wound. Next time we see Aidey Williams In the pub I might ask him his true feelings on the matter - the ones you don't hear in Radio Berkshire - we'll take the dogs with us that'll get him talking
