my favourite bit from noble was in the pre match when he said wigan had done good under him in the last 3 years

Don't talk sense man!

He may not have had the greatest start to this year but the squad he has helped build is certainly Far Better than what he inheritted.

And despite what certain people say the club will be far better when he does leave (whenever that is) than when he came!

Geez,,,,You really hate him don*t you.

the thought police

The thing with Noble is that he has stablised us from relegation fodder to a team thats in and around the playoff spot's.

However since then he hasn't moved us onto that next level and thats the problem!

He is a decent guy, and he is trying his best however, it isn't as yet working for him.

So what do Wigan do? Sack him? that would cause major chaos, Keep him? that could also mean more inconsistency.

Lets not forget the players need to take a portion of the blame and not just the coach even though its the coach who is in the firing line 24/7.

I thnink we are just going to have too see how things go from this point on.

This is a fair and honest post, but I don't think we can afford to see how things go for too long.

To be honest, we're not looking like a play-off team this season. If there was still relegation and if Celtic weren't involved in SL, we'd be facing the drop again this year. Two big ifs there, I know, but it illustrates the point of how poor we've been in the league.

There has been improvement under Noble - but it's been painfully slow and painfully slight in my opinion. On top of that, there are the many flaws in Wigan's basic game that we still see repeatedly each week, not to mention the lack of motivation for most fixtures. It doesn't fill you confidence in the coaching.

There's also the time-factor. If IL is genuinely looking for a new coach for next year, he ought to have started the ball rolling by now. He may have done, he may not - we don't know. But he can't hang on until the end of the year and see where we finish, because all the other deals will by then be done and we'll be reduced to picking up scraps.

I suppose that if by some miracle we went on to win the CC and the GF, we'd have no option but to re-think and offer Nobby a new contract, but at present we don't look like winning either.

To turn us from a relegation team he had to bring in Dobson & Fielden, the latter at great cost. That cost is still showing on the salary crap.
With little money they brought in a number of players "who could do a job" for us. That was to keep us mid table until players OOC left and freed up money under the SC. The players who he brought in were not trophy winning players.
In 2009 we have bought our first real quality player in Martin Gleeson since Ian Lenagan bought the club . Rumours about Matt Orford are around and whatever we think about his age he is a player of real quality. If Gleeson & Orford are the quality we are now identifying then we are at last on the right path.
We have all been frustrated at the teams losses but with better quality players now being sought and bought IL & Brian Noble are showing they are taking us forward.
Noble won't now be going to the Roosters as Arthur Beetson has be recruited as the "Mentor" for Fittler, the role suggested for BN.
I would still be quite happy for Noble to be given another two years at Wigan, that's if he wants it!

The team we have now has a majority of players on either signed under Noble or who got new deals under Noble. In other words we have been happy to keep on many of the so called "players who could do a job". We won't be going on a major recruitment exercise for 2010 because there aren't enough out of contract players who are on big wages.

I think recruitment under IL and Noble has so far been pretty poor. We recruited Roberts a year ealry when we didn't need him and Riddell is not setting SL on fire is he? These players are on current form also middle of the road players but we took them on for 4 and 3 years. respectively.

Gleeson is a class player but is stuck on the side of the pitch we never play to. He is supposed to be on a high wage so why not go for the enforcer prop many want or replace Barrett? To me recruitment looks haphazard with players bought because they were available (Roberts in particular but also Gleeson perhaps) instead of based on a master plan.

As to Noble its about time people realised 2006 is well in the past and Noble needs to be judged on what he has done since then. The job of saving us from relegation was done and thanks very much but it is no reason to give him a new deal if we continue as we have done since.

Dave

This guy has taken us to 4 semi finals in 3 years so its an improvment of what we had before.

Some who do not like Noble for whatever reason cannot see that

Noble's folksy style gets tiring pretty quick. And there's that monotone delivery which threatens to affect excitement but never quite gets there. I mean, when the Beeb hired both him and Millward they were far better than what was around at the time. But Nobby needs to go, soon.

Im not Noble's biggest fan, but this is getting very petty now.

On current form neither are setting SL alight. But when their signings for Wigan were officially announced I didn't hear anyone on here saying they were 'poor signings'.

I still don't think Roberts is a poor signing - alot of work he does go's un-noticed by many.