He's not mythical, He's a very nice man

But as before, presumably the '10000 tickets sold' includes all ST holders?

It’s a dying sport unfortunately, those attendances confirm everything.

Why have a go at me commenting on the running of the club when many other supporters who have been use to better times are doing the same thing on this website, Wigan Fans and other local social media,.

Not everybody is a member of the Ian Lenagan Fan Club on here.

Not trolling, just facing the reality of the present state of the club both on and off the field.

p.s. and to answer your question, perhaps the time has come for new younger and more dynamic ownership who have bigger and better finance like the owner of Warrington.

The dynamic Warrington who signed Jack Hughes, Dom Crosby, Kevin Brown, Josh Charnley, Matty Russell o.k

Irrespective of signings (which the negative people will say out quality isn't as good as Warrington despite FACTS proving otherwise, PS you missed Sammy Kibula and Shelford off that list) I just want to know 1 answer to 1 question

Whats the name or names of these multi, multi, multi millionares that are going to buy the club?
Maybe Ruddy is one himself and is trying to call IFL out on a forum to make him sell?

Or I suspect maybe he isn't and is just trying to bad mouth the owner?

I do feel IFL needs to be clear about his position and I do hope that for his legacy he manages to oversee an improvement and leave on a high and ensure the correct transition to the correct new owner.

I'm sure he will.

Thanks for answering at least. I'm sure there are posters on here who think the club (including IL and KR can do no wrong. I'm not one of them.

Has IL made mistakes in the past, of course he has. The Australian trip, the trip to Millwall, however I believe they were probably made with good intentions (to make money outside of gate receipts), both backfired. So in my view IL isn't without fault. There's other examples as well no doubt.

At the same time he's done some great things since taking over us. We've been pretty successful, we have a great Academy that's won 10 out of 12 Grand Finals.

The jury is definitely out on Warrington, they have been spectacular failures for years. Yes they spend, but what has he got them so far. Not trophies, not attendances, not the best youth system. They remind me of Leeds in the early to mid 90's where they spent as much as Wigan but won nothing. Yes they could start winning things over the next couple of years but at the moment they are making noises in an empty room.

I suggested that we need new dynamic leadership in the form of a new owner with finance like the owner of Warrington with no mention about ex. Wigan players.


As for the ex.Wigan players you have mentioned, some of them when playing for us were better than some of the more recent signings we have and you omitted to mention a certain other ex.Wigan player called Williams.

And what about the well known signings they have signed from both here and down under in recent seasons like like Austin, Clarke, Currie, Hill, Hodgeson, Andrew Johns, Monaghan Brothers, Ratchford, Waterhouse, Widdop, etc, etc.

We certainly do need some impetus from somewhere but be careful what you wish for. Wire may make more eye catching/glamorous signings than us and they’re undoubtedly better off financially because of Moran but there’s one telling stat from Lenagans time here. I believe Moran has been at Wire around 4 years longer and in that time this really stands out for me-

Grand Final wins

Ian Lenagan-4

Simon Moran-0

If you think that I am just bad mouthing Lenagan, it only shows how out of touch you are with what many other supporters think about his present leadership and the present state of the club.

I have always been supported of him since when he bought the club as it was like a breath of fresh air after what had gone on in the mid/late nighties and the ownership of Whelan, but that support has waned in the last three seasons or so as a result of the poor financial decisions, how the club is now being run and some of the more recent signings which have not been of the standard expected at a top club like Wigan.

Like I sad before, the present state of the club reminds me of the late seventies when the club then had financial problems, poor crowds and were signing poor players from other local clubs.

If you and the minority on here are happy with the present situation, then so be it but I can assure you that there are many supporters who are not and like the late seventies are now voting with their feet irrespective of any pandemic.

Whats the name of this person who has 100million and wants to buy Wigan?
Until then the rest of what your posting is pointless.

I was there in the alte 70s/early 80s and it was 10xtimes worse than this
That doesn't mean that what happening now is good, but until a new owner wants to come in and buy the club and inject X into it then what is your point?

You keep saying you know all these people who don't like the way IFL is running the club, wow what a surprise, are these your mates, people on Facebook, people on twitter etc etc because guess what, the loudest are always the most critical.
They can usually find fault with everything whilst offering very little answers or solutions

And you say "If you and the minority on here are happy with the present situation, then so be it but I can assure you that there are many supporters who are not and like the late seventies are now voting with their feet irrespective of any pandemic"

How do you know its the minority in here?
How do you know there aren't other supporters who are prepared to be patient with IFL who don't post on here, twitter, Facebook etc?
Where are your Facts or evidence to support this?
Are you really saying that wigans drop in crowds is related to IFL ownership of club only and nothing to do with the pandemic?

To be honest, I think there are issues, what i won't do is pander to the ones that almost take glee in it whilst offering no tangible solutions, ideas, and constantly turn absolutely everything into a slating of people who have pretty much done nothing other than pump millions, their time and efforts into making Wigan something like what it was 30 plus years ago, whilst not losing the ground and financially ruin us whilst doing so.
Or sit back and listen to melancholy nostalgia through cherry and white tinted/gang of 4 tinted glasses.

How doJack Robinson signings compare?
Koloi, Sherratt, lester hansen etc etc ? I could go on!!!
How were the sub 10k crowds at Central park 97/98/99 when we couldn't blame a.pandemic ?
How were the scrapes with the tax man etc?
What was our financial state like in reality back then compared to now?

You've spent the last god k ow how long defelcring criticism of Lam and Clubb for example to blame all our woes on Lenaghan and Radlinski.
Thats just embarrassing

What really annoys me about a lot of Wigan fans recently is the continuous abuse of IFL,without this person putting in 500k a season we wouldn't even have a club to support,yes i can understand that supporters are frustrated with some of the signings but you have to cut your cloth accordingly,hopefully in the next 18-24 months we can recover as a club and as a sport

One thing I was annoyed about with my own reply was that I'd forget to reply to the "some of the more recent signings haven't been of the standard tmexpectrd of a top club like Wigan".

I appreciate there are some risk signings, there always has been, even when the gang of 4 were here.
Now obviously this is aimed at signings like :-
Mitch Clarke
Sammutt
Joe Bullock
Bibby

In fact, other than those 4 I'm not sure which other signings could be described as signings made in the name of cutting your cloth?
Bibby has been a pretty good signing for mine and 2 of the other 3 (Sammutt excluded and injury meant well never know how that would have gone on) just haven't really worked.
Joe Bullock being the most frustrating one whilst Mitch Clarke doesn't seem to be a player Lam wants to pick.
I would certainly say I would have hoped Lam would get more out of these 2 than he has, and ill always wonder what if they'd played for say a Wane.

So on reflection, is that really that bad?

And this is my point
In the same time frame IFL/Rads have brought in

Hardaker
Hastings
French
Burgess (ok, but he was top dollar so deffo not bargain basement shopping)
Field
Singleton (not sure which of the 2 groups to put him in, but he's a tried and tested SL player)
John Bateman

I'm not really sure how that is penny pinching etc certainly under the backdrop of Covid and certainly up until last year being the highest spending club on wages in the country.

It's not all about the signings that we have made It's also about player's that get released as well which saves money

South stand sold out.

15,000 already sold (must include travelling saints fans), hopefully a good walk up with decent weather today.

When i spoke to the ticket office yesterday Stains had sold 3000 tickets

Looks a pretty pleasing crowd expected all things considered. This later season game is never anything like a sell out, so it shouldn’t be too far down on what we’d usually expect.

Oh yeah, didn't think of that
I mean no one comes in as per above new signings to replace thise players do they?

Not sure what you mean?
Yes players leave, yes players come in

Up until end of 2019 we paid the highest gross money out in the league on wages, how is that penny pinching? (I can't comment about 2020, but with the signings of Hastings and Burgess ill guess we were still near the top of the pile).

Fair points.

I'll admit that I've been very critical of IL as of late. I know something is wrong, but if you asked me what, I'd be somewhat stumped. Maybe it would be a mixture of issues, some of which contradict eachother i.e I can't say penny pinching as he signed Hastings and Bateman, but he's also not invested in the front row.

I'd probably summed it up as this - IL and KR have been slightly negligent in the way they've pulled together the 1st team squad & coaching staff. It seems like mates looking after mates, when we needed to be a bit tougher.

The spend hasn’t been off but the recruitment and retention has been. If we’ve spent the most in the league for the last two and a half years, than clearly we haven’t had value for money. It’s a tough job signing players, especially when you’re replacing some top class talent but we’ve certainly fell short.

I did say 2019
No idea about 2020/21, but as I said earlier we've brought in decent to good quality in French/Hastings/Bibby and Burgess (obviously other issues there).

I think in what is a very complicated situation thats as close to my feelings that I've seen/read.

I do have some/quite a bit of info relating to off the field issues and it can't be underestimated what effect the Latics situation as also had on our fortunes.
I can't go into a lot of it, but IL spent A LOT of time and effort in this area for about 10 months and I'm not 100% sure its been the best outcome for us (not saying the new guys are doing anything wrong BTW, just that the cards fell a certain way and if they'd fell differently it may have worked out better for us).

However

I do see more issues in the last 2/3 years than I have in the previous 10

A bit like you I can't quite put my finger on it, he seems to want to stay in control, however the decision making doesn't seem to back that up.
Hes spent money in some areas but neglected in others
Hes obviously backing the club with his own money, but seems to be throwing it away with some of the decisions made.

I'm all for new investment, as log as we don't discard people who have played a great part in our success if they do want to still be involved etc.

I just thi k people being critical and picking out negatives continously is a disgrace especially when we have no idea if there is anyone out there who would step into ILs shoes etc.
How many people with 100m and willing to underwrite possibly 1to2m pound of loss per year are actually out there?

I'm personally hoping that, bringing Wane back & at director level will solve some of the playing side issues.

Maybe both IL and KR have been too stretched and having someone dedicated to looking at the squad, coaches and signings will see things improve.

What will annoy many supporters who visit the website is the way that a minority including yourself continue to see there is nothing wrong with the present running of the club and the present state of what is supposed to be a professional sport.

To think that that the club and the game will return back to normal and what it used to be prior to 1996 in the next 18-24 months is only showing how out of touch some are with the reality of the present state of the club and game at the present time.

If Lenagan is having to put in 500k a season to keep the club afloat, it only shows the unhealthy state of the club finances and might explain why the squad is not as strong as it should be and the club having too many in administration and other non playing jobs!

Perhaps. that's where the cloth needs to be cut accordingly!

Minority? Yeah ok
You do know just saying things doesn't make them true
And as for cloth cutting in administration etc rather than the squad, absolute codswallop from someone who has no idea whatbthe set up is behind the scenes