Worst case scenario | Vital Football

Worst case scenario

GT1978

Vital Squad Member
If it happened that we didn’t make more signings in the coming months either permanently or on loan, do you think we would be looking at a season of woe ? I personally think we are very light weight up front & grigg needs to hit the ground running this time around in this league !
 
Grigg ability to be an effective goalscorer will likely define our success I think we will be ok at the back and midfield but if Grigg doesn’t take chances we will struggle. This is likely his last chance to become a championship regular let’s hope he takes it. But there will be more signings no matter who they are tho our prospects this year won’t change dramatically.
 
I think that there has been a lot of unfair negativity towards the squad in recent weeks. A lot of people wanting to bring numerous signings but haven't we learned this lesson before? I don't think we have had a stable summer window in 5+ years since relegation. The squad last year won albeit a very poor League 1. We weren't always spectacular but we played for each other and worked as a team to grind out results. During the later stages of the season and in the cup run squad players came in and did a solid job for us and there is a very good feel factor around the group. Obviously pound for pound we don't have the same quality as the majority of other teams in the division but we don't have the finances to compete with most of them. What we need is a quiet steady window. A left back is a must and we haven't yet lost any key players. We have a very positive manager and backroom staff and I think that we are in a lot stronger position going into the league than we were under Caldwell. I think that the 3 training with us (Perch, Gibson and Wallace) would all be good buys on a free and would bulk up our squad in terms of cover and quality. They are all proven at this level or higher. Positivity and momentum can do a lot in football. Look at Bournemouth when they went L1>Prem in 3 seasons. No star names in the squad and not much change but they had a good manager and momentum. I am realistic and say that lower mid table would be a good season but I am more than confident that the current squad and staff are capable of achieving that. We need to find stability in this division before looking to kick on and push further up the league pending on how the takeover goes.
 
I'm absolutely certain there will be more signings, but i accept that we might not be spending as much as we hoped on them.

But although we've got a good foundation it is a very tough league full of quality, so we certainly could do with extra strength. It's very diffiult to predict as some promoted sides ride their momentum to great seasons while others struggle with the step up. But if i had to take a punt I'm thinking that a lower mid table finish, flirting with the edges of relegation battle but not really getting too dragged in could be the type of area we end up.

One thing regarding Grigg is generally he doesn't score many in the first half of the season but then strangely comes to life after Christmans, so i wouldn't be shocked if he got off to a slow start which means we'd need other players to be chipping in.
 
I think that there has been a lot of unfair negativity towards the squad in recent weeks. A lot of people wanting to bring numerous signings but haven't we learned this lesson before? I don't think we have had a stable summer window in 5+ years since relegation. The squad last year won albeit a very poor League 1. We weren't always spectacular but we played for each other and worked as a team to grind out results. During the later stages of the season and in the cup run squad players came in and did a solid job for us and there is a very good feel factor around the group. Obviously pound for pound we don't have the same quality as the majority of other teams in the division but we don't have the finances to compete with most of them. What we need is a quiet steady window. A left back is a must and we haven't yet lost any key players. We have a very positive manager and backroom staff and I think that we are in a lot stronger position going into the league than we were under Caldwell. I think that the 3 training with us (Perch, Gibson and Wallace) would all be good buys on a free and would bulk up our squad in terms of cover and quality. They are all proven at this level or higher. Positivity and momentum can do a lot in football. Look at Bournemouth when they went L1>Prem in 3 seasons. No star names in the squad and not much change but they had a good manager and momentum. I am realistic and say that lower mid table would be a good season but I am more than confident that the current squad and staff are capable of achieving that. We need to find stability in this division before looking to kick on and push further up the league pending on how the takeover goes.

Bournemouth spent an absolute fortune as they’re backed by a Russian billionaire
Haven’t got a list of their signings or wages but the fact that they’ve just settled with the Footballs league for breaking the FFP rules shows you why they got promoted to the top flight & keeping the same squad wasn’t the major reason - money was

Nowt wrong with that, just that it’s not the best example to use when saying Latics shouldn’t bring in too many new players
 
The last time we got promoted to this League we brought in quite a few new faces, which at the time seemed a positive thing but with hindsight probably took away some of our momentum and team spirit.
Yes we do need to re-enforce in some areas but there were never going to be the wholesale changes that some people wanted.
So long as we get a left back and some players with experience as back-up (e.g. Perch) then we should be fine in our quest to secure our place in the Championship. We need to stabalise and use the momentum that we had as Champions to do that and then move on from there, slowly building up.
 
I think we have too many players and still need to integrate players from the last window.

The trouble is everyone is always looking for that big name signing. But our history at Wigan tells us they rarely work out. It’s the ones who come in will little fanfare that become integral and fan favourites.
 
Worst case scenario is that we will be in a better position for our opening game of the season then we were in 2016-17 season.

More experience manager, with more character. Which at the very least will stop us lacking confidence on a bad run.

The squad for Bristol city in 16-17 season was;

Bogdan
Burn
Morgan
Buxton
Burke
Warnock
Gilbey
Power
Perkins
Wildschut
Grigg

Bench;
Jasskelainen Daniels Chow Jacobs Morsy Barrigan Colclough

We now have a better player in every position except left wing. All the players that went into that game have gained 2 years of experience. Most of the squad is around 26 now, which imo is the start of their peak as players.

We picked up 42 points that season, last season 43 points was enough to stay up.
 
I'm still absolutely convinced that we'd have stayed up back then were it not for a slightly mental change in approach from Caldwell during pre-season. We needlessly completely changed our tactics and didn't address the two obvious gaps in the squad until way into August (right back and striker).

I think defensively, if we can get a left-back in soon, we're solid, which is a massive advantage. I think we'll need to grind out results at times but I'd back us to cause some upsets doing that.

Would bet a lot of cash that we wont go down.
 
Grigg will be good enough but the 4-2-3-1 may be stretched to a 4-3-2-1 or at times look more like a 5-4-1. If that's the case he will look very isolated and won't look good at all. Grigg will be as good as the support he gets.
 
The last two seasons we’ve been relegated we were solid in defence. I have very little worries about our defence this season now Walton is in as long as we sign a good LB. It’ll take a good team to score more than one past us a game. But the last two seasons one goal has usually been enough. It’s the attack (the same position that has seen us relegated the last two seasons) that seriously worries me. Powell is the only player I have 100% confidence in delivering game winning moments. If he stays fit all season he’ll get 10 goals and at least 10 assists. Grigg should get more than he did last time out but that’s it in terms of attack for me. Burn and Dunkley won’t get as many as they did last season which will be a blow. It’s ridiculously harder to score from set pieces in the Championship compared to L1.
 
I agree it will be tough to score goals. I look back to last season and there's no way we'll see the same number of soft set-piece goals. I also worry a bit about our set-piece takers. Power was suddenly excellent at them last season, having been pretty poor before. I hope he can continue that, but I wouldnt want to rely on him entirely.

I did think that Cook did well to develop an effective plan b last season by signing Vaughan and throwing him up with Grigg and moving Powell deeper in the Pirlo type role. I can see that working again in some games but I think we could lose games by larger margins when it exposes us at the other end.
 
The strategy that I can see will be to keep it tight in our 4-2-3-1, which could see a fair few goalless draws and some low margin victories.

Then if we concede I think the 4-4-2 will be seen again. My worry with strikers is that we looked really poor when Vaughan started on his own. We just lumped it long and he was very isolated. In contrast, I thought he was very good up there with Grigg. If Cook saw the same thing then it wouldnt surprise me to see another striker come in who can play that role. Eoin Doyle would be my bet.
 
Last time we went down because we had the worst manager we have ever had in the history of the club, a man so far out of his depth I felt sorry for him at times.