Fair points. In regard to Gentle there's more to look at than the 6th place finish is I guess my point. And for me it was more troughs than peaks second half of last year. Having said that I have said for a long time that we don't have the ability in key positions - Holdsworth had an excellent kicking game which is totally absent now but was average with ball in hand.

A top coach would be a boon no doubt whatsoever but they would have to rebuild the side to win anything.

A rather scary proposition, stop it.

It's indisputable that we made some progress under Gentle compared to what had gone before. We had consolidated 6th place and, although our squad wasn't good enough to get much higher than that, we weren't ever in danger of not making the play offs as we were under Agar and we now are under Radford.



As I have said previously (and as Worm In Hand alluded to), much of that (in my opinion) was down to the coach having 'lost' the dressing room.



No. Suggesting that the coach is partly responsible for inconsistent performances and saying that the coach was making progress overall are not mutually exclusive.



You deny that we finished 6th in both of his seasons in charge? Even allowing for some awful performances along the way? We can only dream of that this year.



That much is not in dispute. The squad is, however, good enough to be doing much better than it currently is. I'd say we should be around, er, 6th.



The squads are roughly comparable, but the results were better under Gentle. 9 points better (I think) than for the same games last year. On that basis, we must have been better coached under Gentle.



He would have been right to get rid of him if he'd have replaced him with someone better, I fully agree. But to replace him with Lee Radford was asking for us to be in precisely the situation we now find ourselves in.

Defensenively Gentle got us spot on it was scoring points that was the problem.

This season we are struggling with both IMO. There is no consistency, no style or structure to our play and although there were lows in Gentle's tenure they were still not as frequent as Radford's.

I agree with Worm In Hand's analogy, Radford was part of the cause and now he is reaping what he has sewn.

Did Hay not recognise this and this is why he ended up leaving with no explanantion?

For what it's worth I too would like a new coach as I'm bored and disinterested in what we are doing now and soon I feel I'll be past caring.

I hope the feeling of discontent has reached Pearson and that he is prepared to do something about it.

What would people thing to Hay as our new coach, I know unproven but was credited with a lot of the good stuff we did under Gentle. Just a thought.

Just took the Fev job, and we don't want to be replacing an inexperienced coach with another one.

Remind me again why we got rid of Peter Sharp. Surely it can't all have been down to people leaping on the "Sharp is Toast" bandwagon shoved out by Burns?

This is my thoughts exactly I'm happy to give a coach time to build his own squad if that coach was the right person but unfortunately radford is not that right person, to replace gentle with a young unproven coach who only had a few years as assistant under his belt was a ludicrous decision.

Classic urban myth in my opinion. It wasn't just at the end of the season that we were poor we managed lots of poor performances along the way with Gentle - even in his first year. My theory is much simpler - the players aren't good enough as a group and that's down mainly to poor recruitment and retention in the Gentle/McRae era. We made precisely no progress in that area In fact when you consider that we have lost Briscoe (currently selecting Colbon and Crookes as wingers), and the only kicking game we've had for years in Holdsworth I'd say we were much weaker now than we were under Gentle. Our half back situation is dire - no experience there whatsoever in view of the fact Horne seems now to have finished his career.

Pearson seems to think he's made the right decision regarding the coach and that's his decision to make. If we get relegated he might think differently but it seems he's sitting tight.

Radford needs 5 years minimum to rebuild this club, don't see anybody doing any better long term. People thought it would get better when Agar left, it didn't, then when Gentle left, it hasn't. Certain players are willing to give their all (Westy, Feka, Shaul etc.) others aren't, let him get rid of them. This problem isn't going away by dumping coach after coach, might as well let someone see it through. People like Noble and Smith aren't the answer and it's going to get a damn sight worse before it gets better, people need to realise this, get over it and support the club in what it's trying to achieve. Too many fans spoilt by the minimal success of the mid 2000's.

Good post.

We don't always see things the same way but what you've posted there is a perfect summary of the situation. If it's not Radford then whoever it is the timescale is the same. We've wasted two years under Gentle/McRae and Howes etc - with the exception of an increased investment in youth which was welcome and long overdue.

I'm just sick of the same old cycle of failure, time to do something long term. We've always taken a top down approach in the hope of stumbling across a formula that works, but there's no quick fix. I'm sure the Wigan board looked pretty much like this one in 2005/6/7.

Adamfaulkner pearson tweeted 2 hrs ago "Have just had an offer for our flying wingers crookes and colbon but neither wanted to play for jenkoprint" Nice one adam,you have to laugh.

I appreciate that nothing we do is going to turn us into a great club over night. I just want to see signs that we are working on the right things and moving in the right direction, however slowly that may be. So far I can't say I've seen that.

I actually thought there were some green shoots on Saturday, I felt there were areas that were much better than in recent weeks. So I will be interested to see how the next month goes. If we can put in some good performances and pick up a few wins then I would be willing to give Radford a chance. As things stand though he's got a lot to do to convince me.

I agree with giving someone time, but I couldn't agree less with the assertion that Radford is that man. A decent coach gets the best out of whatever squad is available to him (whilst building a better one over time). Radford has singularly failed to get the best out of his team, despite assurances that the squad now had 'their guy' in charge. The very idea of another 4.5 years of Radford chills me to the bone.

It hasnt taken Powell 5 years to take Castleford to contenders, more like 5 months.

We've had clearout after clearout of players, we've had the 'let Agar/Gentle have his own team' before
now we're saying the same for Radford?

A good Head Coach, improves a team with an existing squad.

I'd appoint someone like Flanagan,Smith or Elliott , but back them with sufficient coaching resources,
just like the Wigan board backed Maguire.