Wigan have managed to put together a good, exciting team in a "worse" part of the country.

Wigan is a place with no footballing heritage at all, no crowds and hardly has a reputation as a picturesque or happening settlement. Granted it's near Manchester and less of an outpost than Norwich, but even so ...

And I know they've had a lot of money to spend but a lot of the players they've got in their side - Baines, Skoko, Bullard, Pollitt, Henchoz, de Zeeuw etc were actually signed fairly cheaply.

Bolton (in a similar location) are another example of what can be done with a good scouting network and intelligent management - I know their football isn't brilliant but if you were a Bolton fan and saw Djorkaeff, Okocha, Hierro, Diouf, Borgetti, Bobic etc playing alongside good youth team products like Nolan and Hunt you'd be delighted, wouldn't you?

I just wish NW wasn't so blinkered and parochial in the transfer market, and hadn't so whole-heartedly surrendered himself to his Plan B (and it IS Plan B - we haven't always been like it under his tenure) of filling the team with hard-working cloggers and hoofing the ball at the big man.

Posted By: Ottosson Foxtrot, Jan 24, 10:37:46