The 12th Man : Latics fans have their say

And we may not be in one yet but the next few games look particularly daunting and points may be at a premium somewhat.

Sheffield Wednesday are as ever sat perpetually on the edge of either greatness or financial meltdown, set against the backdrop of Human League, Henderson’s Relish and the brutalist Park Hill estate obviously.

They appear to be struggling a touch this season, but Hillsborough is a tough place to go.

And as the small club coming up to this division, we are struggling to impose ourselves away from home.

The only positive thing you can say about a midweek trip to Norwich is that it’s good to get it out of the way early in the season, if only to give your retinas chance to recover from all that garish yellow and green clobber on display at Carrow Road.

These are tricky games and even our next home game, Fulham looks tricky after that seem to have gotten their act together, perhaps since they got rid of a certain centre-half.

Sorry, that was mischievous!

So we need points urgently and that immediate stack of fixtures doesn’t exactly suggest an easy haul.

Yet the games we have lost thus far have all been by the odd goal, which suggests a team that is perhaps a touch unlucky and naive in the ways of the Championship.

I’m not one of those screaming for our young manager’s head just yet, but there are a few things he needs to fix in order to turn those defeats into draws and then ultimately narrow wins in our favour.

The recent squad additions have no doubt been carried out to address exactly that, and Gary Caldwell has shown himself to be quite adaptable in changing things when it was getting a bit tricky during our League One campaign.

You may be surprised to hear this from a devout footballing purist like myself, but I’d humbly suggest the need to “win ugly” is perhaps the priority right now, and we can add back in the nice, aesthetically pleasing side to our game once the team and performances are a bit more settled.

Since last season, we have turned from being ‘Big Guns’ to ‘Little Wigan’ again, and it’s time ‘Little Wigan’ got back to doing what it does best – upsetting the odds!

Martin Tarbuck

It’s back over the Pennines this weekend, with a trip to Sheffield Wednesday and Hillsborough in prospect as Latics look to get back on track.

It should be one of the most anticipated away days on the Latics fixture list.

An historic club and ground in a brilliant city should mean we’ve already sold our allocation, but Sheffield Wednesday’s pricing policy for Saturday means this away day simply won’t happen for many supporters.

£33 is a ridiculous price for second-tier football, especially when away fans now pay no more than £30 per person in the Premier League.

According to some on social media we should look towards Aston Villa who sold out their full allocation at an even higher price than that.

It seems to be a symptom of the modern-day football fan to laugh at those who question it.

Maybe if those Wednesday fans had questioned the club’s pricing like other Championship teams’ supporters are, they wouldn’t have to pay the outlandish prices either.

Hopefully the lack of Latics supporters who (quite rightly) have decided £33 is far too high a price to pay won’t have a detrimental effect on the side.