Birchy7

So proud of the lads tonight. Every single one of them worked so hard for the cause. Defence were all giants. Beye looked so comfortable on the ball. If he keeps playing like that Luke Young wont get in! What a turnaround. Wow. That should give everyone a huge boost.

True to an extent, but I just feel he has to take it and get on with the game. Sulking around the pitch or dropping his head makes him more of a liability - and then he ends up picking pointless yellow cards.

Lack of leadership. We didn't just lose an excellent defender in Laursen, we lost our leader. When we went a goal down, who was out there today who could grab the game and drive us on? I'm struggling to think of anyone. The one player who does seem to have some of these qualities is Nigel Reo-Coker. I don't think MON has much faith in him or Sidwell to deliver. Ashley Young was brilliant at times last season, but he has lost a fair amount of respect around the country. He goes down far too easily, constantly looks for free kicks - and when he doesn't get them, he just sulks around the pitch. That can't help his game (hence silly bookings which will cost us at some stage) and it can't help his team. Playing with two wide men and two players - Petrov and Delph today - isn't going to win you enough games. I know people have talked about 4-5-1 but I don't think it would be a disaster to play with just one wide man. It's become a luxury for us. I'd rather us start to have more things coming through the middle - incisive passes, vision, keeping the ball well, controlled football. It hurts to say this but in the short time Martinez has been at Wigan, they've nailed it on day one. If they play like that all season they will do ok. I have a certain amount of trust left in O'Neill. I don't sense at all that he's lost the dressing room, but I do think he is too slow to adapt and change. I think the job he has in sorting out the problems I mentioned above is vast - much bigger than he thinks. He's either being naive if he thinks we will be ok on desire alone or he's being arrogant enough to believe that he can keep things as they are and he will still pull up trees. One thing that does depress me about him is some of his comments "if we possibly can" "If at all possible" "we'll take a look at things". The small squad argument doesn't wash anymore. This isn't a newcomer to town. He's had so much time to sort the squad out. This isn't one poor result, it's half a season of misery. Why and how it went wrong is surely due to one major reason: the transfer window. He's either brought poorly or not brought at all (see Heskey in January). I don't like to see booing and negativity, but it's a result of so much frustration of being in a good position and just standing still...thinking "oh it was excellent once, it will come back": Martin..it won't just come good because you can believe the hype and wave a magic 'I can motivate any player' wand. We need investment in the squad, we need leadership and we need a few more plans in the tactical department.