Sharpey on the telly | Vital Football

Sharpey on the telly

Interesting read.

The 3 points that stuck out to me.

1. He feels like he's more a director of football than a chairman. I'd be curious about what that entails compared to a chairman.

2. We could be losing 10-12m this season so sales will have to happen. Not unexpected but it's not been confirmed that is how much we could be losing.

3. He is understandably vague on the takeover but it doesnt sound imminent considering we are meant to be getting some type of announcement of further details in the next 24 hours.
 
Yes, it seemed all pretty historical, initially concentrating on the Mackay/Caldwell/Rosler changeovers. He was certainly emphasising the losses and need to sell players to cover those losses and that Cook was fully aware of the need for this business model and was ‘on board’
Which all sounded a bit strange given that we had come (I think) to the collective impression that we were about to escape that scenario by the impending takeover?
Also given that our chief asset is currently devaluing rapidly due to the contract issue....then in the absence of any takeover, we are facing a problem.
Maybe this was just a pre agreed ‘straight bat’ on any question of the takeover but if so I’m not sure why he agreed to participate.
 
Interesting. He makes reference to the importance of signing the right manager when Martinez left. Yet we hired Owen fucking Coyle. Of all our mistakes in the last 5 years this has to be the worst as it was the catalyst for everything that followed.

On the takeover. Difficult to judge but I didn't interpret it as if it was a sure thing. Given the length of time it's taking I'm not surprised as there must be some uncertainty. Seemed to suggest if it did they would run the club differently and that he wouldn't necessarily be a part of it as we were led to believe. Either way it's hampering our business as he talks of the need to sell to balance the books but effectively is in limbo in regards sticking and twisting with regards assets of diminishing worth if the takeover is prohibiting offering new deals. We need a resolution on this one way or the other fast.
 
Paul Kendrick on twitter said that the reason Sharpe was vague on the takeover was because non-disclosure agreements had been signed and he therefore couldn't talk about it
 
Interesting my arse, talks in a one dimensional boring drone for twenty minutes and says fuck all .
Not exactly Mr Charisma.
 
Interesting. He makes reference to the importance of signing the right manager when Martinez left. Yet we hired Owen fucking Coyle. Of all our mistakes in the last 5 years this has to be the worst as it was the catalyst for everything that followed.

I watched it, that piece has been edited and some of it is kind of out of context from what he was asked. He was saying the Coyle appointment was wrong.
 
I watched it, that piece has been edited and some of it is kind of out of context from what he was asked. He was saying the Coyle appointment was wrong.

It certainly was. The only person, be it fan or employee who thought different was Whelan. And probably Kenny!
 
Way i looked at it after the FA cup win whelan then decided he had done what he set out to do get to the prem win the cup then as far has he was concerned job done
Whelan no longer would put his own personal wealth into the club and i dont blame him
First he made sure martinez was set up in a job at everton then he brought in a manager who alot of wiganers did not like but coyles job was to sell the cream for whelan to keep the club going
And in return we signed some shyte which sent us on a downward spiral
See i dont blame whelan for not wanting to spend what wealth he had he realised football at a high level is for billionaire not millionaire and only way was to sell to survive coyles job was just to help clear out
 
It certainly was. The only person, be it fan or employee who thought different was Whelan. And probably Kenny!
Sorry to disapoint you MIW but I was as shocked as anyone when Coyle was appointed. But was willing to support him whilst he was our Manager, however I was glad when he went
 
Sorry to disapoint you MIW but I was as shocked as anyone when Coyle was appointed. But was willing to support him whilst he was our Manager, however I was glad when he went

Fair enough, it was meant tongue in cheek!

I recall when he appointed him, even Whelan didn't seem overly convinced or enthusiastic about. I got the impression he just wanted to make a quick appointment and gave little consideration to it.
 
I was told by a former director, that Coyle was the standout choice based on his interview. He was animated, enthusiastic and came across in exactly the way they would have hoped. Contrasting that with Steve McLaren who gave the distinct impression the job was beneath him and conveyed the attitude like, “Well I suppose I might take it for a bit until something better came along” ...

Of course Coyles performance didn’t live up to his interview but I think it was all they could do to hold back from sending McLaren out with a boot up his arse
 
To Bicky - i dont think that theory makes a lot of sense as the best thing for Whelan if he wanted to make money or avoid spending any would be to immedietely go back up to get into the Prem money again. As Studds pointed out we spent quite lot of money that season about 6m on signings and about 25m on wages, we also offered 10m for Jordan Rhodes at one point that was more than enough to have a team capable of challenging for promotion. We were the third biggest spendinger in the whole league that season so while we sold some players we got big fees that were too good to turn down and they were to help offset the massive drop in income from relegation.

I think 100% Whelan wanted to bounce straight back up and he thought Coyle was the right man - he just got it badly wrong.

To Zeb, i heard a similar story, apparently Coyle had done his homework knew the players we had and went in with a set of targets he felt we needed while McClaren apparently didn't know anything and had no idea what he wanted to do in the market. Basically Coyle was ready to hit the ground running while McClaren said he'd need time to work out what was going on.

Another thing worth baring in mind is at the time Coyle had an excellent spell at Hibs, did an oustanding job at Burnley taking them up and having them compete when everyone thought they'd sink without a trace and initially worked wonders to keep Bolton up in his first season before it went so very wrong which he explained was down to a horrific injury list which was actually a fair comment when you saw he had so many long term injuries to so many first teamers. So like most managers he had a bad spell but he also had more good than bad on his CV. I didn't want Coyle or McClaren (i wanted Poyet) but at the time i do remember thinking i could see the logic even though i thought it wasn't a good fit. Since then Coyles just added more failures to his CV and i think we can look back and say it was a completely unforgivable appointment but while he wasn't a choice any of us wanted - i don't think it was quite as non-sensical as we feel looking back. So i while i wasn't pleased at all with Whelans choice it wasn't as leftfield as Joyce, crazy as Malky or as asking for trouble as Hutchings which were all much higher risk. Whelan clearly felt he'd get the Coyle who worked miricles at Burnley and his experience of taking them up was likely the thing that attracted him to the appointment.
 
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The thing about Coyle blaming injuries for his failure at Bolton was that it was utter bullshit that even the most basic of digging by Latics would have uncovered.
There were 2 or 3 high profile long term injuries but he had ages to replace them. Did Whelan really think Coyle had been sacked coz he was unfortunate with injuries???
Let’s not forget either that he was the Bolton manager who thought Bogdan was a better keeper than Al Habsi - & then spent a fortune on wages on another keeper after arriving at Latics without even having assessed the squad properly

I’ve no doubt he gave a good interview but to be honest, he should never even have been on the shortlist based on his performance and the chaos he’d brought to Bolton. Latics should have asked the players to ask their mates at Latics or people behind the scenes coz none of them would have had a good word to say about him
 
Let’s not forget either that he was the Bolton manager who thought Bogdan was a better keeper than Al Habsi - & then spent a fortune on wages on another keeper after arriving at Latics without even having assessed the squad properly

I’ve no doubt he gave a good interview but to be honest, he should never even have been on the shortlist based on his performance and the chaos he’d brought to Bolton. Latics should have asked the players to ask their mates at Latics or people behind the scenes coz none of them would have had a good word to say about him

To be fair to Coyle, although I didn't think he was the right Manager for us, he had a lot of recruitment to do in a short period due to players leaving after the PL relegation. I blame Martinez in the main for that as lots were out of contract, he just upped and left when we were relegated.
I remember a MU fan asking me at the Charity Shield game how may players we had lost and he was shocked it was in double figures, I think it was about 16 from memory..
So he did mostly OK there but from all accounts his training regieme etc and tactics were abysmal. He brought in Carson because Ali was injured and likely to be out for 4 months due to the operation he had so I have no problem there, Carson had pedigree, was a recent England keeper, and is still playing for a top half Championship club so he can't be that poor
 
Just checked the validity of Coyles injury crisus claims and i think you may be dismissing them MB a little too lightly.

According to interviews and articles at the time both new right back Tyrone Myres and most creative winger Chung broken legs in pre season.

Marcos Alonso now at Chelsea had a broken foot.

Stuart Holder their best centre mid had cruciate problems.

Those 4 missed virtually the full season which would be at the time a big blow.

Then you had Muamba collapse with his heart issue and missing half the season.

Plus loads of other shorter term injuries to likes of other first teamers like Pratley, Jussi, Sean Davies, etc over the course of the year. If you look at the stats at the end of the year the vast majority of their first team squad made less than 20 apperances with very few making 30 or above. The injury issues seemed to continue in the Championship. So i think it was actually as bad as Coyle claimed.

It wouldve been something like the equivalent of us having James, Robinson, Jacobs and Powell missing the full season then Morsy missing half. While no doubt Coyle would make excuses for his teams relegation i think that the injuries he had would severely damage any team even with a strong manager.

I'm not saying Coyle was a good manager Im saying his cv was good until the injury crisis began and at the time so i can see how he could legitimately say the injuries caused his downfall. Most managers have a bad spell on their cv - look at Chris Hughton for example he had a good cv then had a bad season at Norwich and got sacked with all their fans thinking he was rubbish and has been a revelation at Brighton. Then you've Brendon Rodgers was garbage at Reading and Swansea fans prob felt like we did about hiring Coyle when they got him in and he was prob the best manager they ever had and had a great career since. Then Hodgson had a very good record had a stinking time at England and Liverpool and loads of people thought he was a joke then he went to relegation certainties Palace and worked a miracle. Even Mowbry had a decent record but he absolutely screwed Coventry up before they sacked him and i thought Blackburn were mental taking him on but he's been superb for them. One clubs trash is anothers treasure.

I think loads of managers have a bad blip on their record and sometimes it's just a blip and other times it's the start of them being exposed. It's a judgement call for a chairman and while most of us in Coyles case felt it was the later i can understand while Whelan thought it was the former. I never thought it was the right appointment but without hindsight i could see why Whelan went for him.
 
Hiring Coyle was the worst decision Whelan ever made at latics and led to us never getting back to the prem and eventually getting relegated again.
Prior to us hiring Coyle. We had Martinez has manager and for all his tenure Martinez had been trying to build the entire club up from the ground. By improving us behind the scenes and giving the club its own style of play and philosophy. Martinez was trying to build up our youth sides and put more emphasis on producing home grown talent. As well has having a strict policy on buying young players that could then be sold on for a profit down the line. So when Martinez left the logical thing to do would of been to do the same as Swansea when Martinez left them and hire someone with a similar style and philosophy like Poyet. Who could carry on what Martinez started. But instead Whelan went the exact opposite direction and hired Coyle. Who was manager who was only focused on the first team and buying players that would do a job for him then. Without thinking of whether that player would have any resale value further down the line. I once heard Coyle was asked about this at a fans forum, that under Martinez Wigan had never signed anyone over the age of 30 and under him he had signed 3 in one transfer window spending just under a third of our total net spend on one in Grant Holt. Where Coyles reply was basically Grant Holt has been signed to score goals this season to get us back to the prem and thats it.

On top of that Coyles style of play and tatics, (what ever they was meant to be) was completely different to Martinez's and at times it seemed like he would push against what Martinez had done because he didn't want any success he had to be seen as being because of what he inherited from Martinez. The Blackpool away game was example of that when we was crap for most of the game but when we had ten good minutes where the team passed it about and we actually looked the better team. he brought on Holt for Gomez and got them to fire long balls at him.

When Coyle came in we had just got relegated but morale was still very high because we had managed to win the cup the year before and most fans was happy to spend a season or two in a lower league with the hope of coming back. We also managed to keep hold of most our team and had some excellent players still in the team such as Gomez, Mcmanaman, Mcarthur and Watson. All Coyle had to do was come in, add a few players and just keep the team ticking over, keep to a similar style to Martinez's which is what the squad was used to and we would of bounced straight back. But instead he went against that and it blew up in his face and cost him what should of been one of the most easiest promotions of his career. His last match was us getting battered 3-0 of derby when we was mid table and dropping. If you do a league table of when Rosler took over till the end of the season we are second in league and during that time we beat derby 3-0. Which I think says all we need to know about Coyles time at the club. An tbh I think we have only just shaken of the damage he caused to the club in recent seasons.
 
I agree with him being the wrong appointment and it being an easy job that he badly messed up, but you're putting way too much at his door to say we are only clearing up the damage he caused. The damage was done by a combination of Coyle, Rosler and MacKay over a 2 year spell and you could even say Caldwell, Joyce and Barrow deserve blame too for the set back of relegating us to L1 for a second time.

When Coyle left after six months we'd massively under performed but we still had a good team, had some good new signings along with the duds (Perch, Powell, McClean, McCann and initially Barnett) and 3 and a half years of parachute payments it wasn't a crisis at that point. So he can't be blamed for what happened after he left, he was just the first in the line of failures. Rosler probaly did more damage than Coyle due to blowing so much more money and signing all duds and dragging us into a relegation battle and destroying our confidence leaving us in a mess that the hopless MacKay had no clue how to clear up.

I don't like having to defend Coyle as i was as against his appointment and for his sacking as anyone but i understood why Whelan wanted him even if if i disagreed myself it wasnt completly crazy or totally void of logic. Also i don't think we can throw excessive blame Coyle for the disasterous 4 years or so spell with 2 relegations when he was only in change for few months. He may have set the ball rolling but others had more than enough of a chance to stop it and ended up pushing it down the hill even further and faster.

You could even make a case Martinez set the ball rolling on our decline by relegating us in the first place. I'm just glad we've finally back on the right track with Cook.