I imagine they have worked out incresing his 'fitness' will reduce his effectiveness if its taken any further.

He is probably at his optimum weight to fitness for the job we want him to do.

OK, let's just agree to disagree on this one. In attack he is a fearsome sight for any opposition but I hope his lack of mobility in defence after he's been on for a few minutes is not exposed by Saints tomorrow.

Presumably he left out the bit about wanting more money than Wigan were prepared to pay him.

I am not sure you read the bit of my post you quoted properly if you are suggesting Noble does what I said.

What I said wasif he does well he should keep his place and the first team player should have to earn his place back. If the young player fades after a few games then he has lost his place for a reason not because [ihe automatically gets dropped as soon as the 1st team player is fit[/i."

Noble does not do the bits in bold but does do the bit in italics.

This IMO leads inevitably to what I said next which was:

"The bottom line is we have a large squad at Wigan with no competition for places under Noble. "

Dave

When I read your summary, which was vary fair I thought, the above stood out for me because it highlights something I have been trying to express for a while now.

People who think Nobby is great and should stay mention two things constantly. Avoiding relegation and the playoff form.

These represent extremes and if you want to see the real picture what you do in statistics is to ignore the extreme values as they distort the overall picture. If you want to see the real trends remove the exceptional results and look at the rest.

If you do this with Nobby's time here its does not look so good. Of course we are all excited by the playoffs so why should you remove them form consideration? You do so because if you want to really be challenging for the trophy's you need to get the consistency and performance up across the season and just looking at the relegation year or semi final appearances masks what is really going on.

Dave

Dave,

You clearly didnt read my post then, ill try again. All coaches do that in all sports. I will list some examples:

Daniel Anderson always brought Long etc back into the team straight away saying "they had enough credits with him to play"

Watkins did okay at Leeds didn't he? But when Senior was fit, he was straight back in, Bluey must have got that one wrong as well I assume...

Now, one more - Sir Alex Ferguson, Rio Ferdinand has had a few injury problems as of late, but as soon as he is fit Johnny Evans/Wes Brown are dropped for Ferdinand, as are other players. Last year would he leave Ronaldo out if Ji Sung Park had played well the week before - NO. Danny Welbeck is another example, the lad scored against Wolves in the league cup the other week, so by your theory should keep his place, what happened - Wayne Rooney came back in. So is Fergie wrong as well, or do you just limit this bizarre line of blame at Noble's door.

So is reaching semi finals not challenging for trophies? Just out of interest, because I want to bare that in mind for when the new coach takes over.

Is reaching the third round challenging?

The club at the start of the season will have a list of goal. Some clubs like Hull kr did this year will publicise them, some wont.

If come the end of the season BN has reached those goals, then why not extend his contract? If he hasnt, why not? And why extend his contract?

news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_l ... 286350.stm Don't know if Long can be taken seriously, but if this is true it rather confirms noble's perceived mistrust of young talent.

news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_l ... 286350.stm Don't know if Long can be taken seriously, but if this is true it rather confirms noble's perceived mistrust of young talent.

Explain.

I said [ireally[/i be challenging for trophies. To do that IMO you have to challenge from a position of strength not be doing so on a wing and a prayer hoping you are not too shattered due to starting from 6th.

Dave

I've not read that article, and frankly I can't be bothered reading it. But there's a generally perceived wisdom that it's best not to take seriously anything Sean Long says.

Skilled player or not, his antics (in very recent times, not just when he was a kid) have brought embarrassment to the game as a whole. That's not something you can say Brian Noble has ever done.

Sorry - for some reason I thought that Noble was involved in the approach. The article doesn't say this.

Ignore me.