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Wigan Athletic: The 12th Man - ‘Why I have made the decision to step away from Latics’ Our panel of Latics are not exactly basking in pre-season optimism ahead of the first ‘proper’ game of the campaign at Barnsley this weekend... Matt Auffrey: By the time Saturday rolls around, it will have been nearly 100 days since our last competitive match. Considering we secured safety back in mid-April, the league campaign starting on August 15 means exactly four months will have passed since we've had a league fixture with any real stakes involved. It's about time that we get to play 'real' football again because the past few weeks' worth of friendlies have done very little to generate excitement for the season ahead. Last weekend's Grimsby match stream allowed me to see the lads in action for the first time this summer. While we controlled larger portions of the match and had our share of positive moments in the opponent's final third, our inability to score, coupled with conceding two preventable goals, made for a frustrating watch. No matter how little weight pre-season performances and results may hold, it'd be hard to deny that we have largely looked like a team that has a ways to go before becoming a formidable League One side. The gaffer indicated after the Grimsby match that some outgoings needed to occur before our next batch of incoming players could get through the door. The new week kicked off with no shortage of activity as Joe Hungbo and Kai Payne both left the club on season-long loan deals, while Jonny Smith departed for Rochdale on a permanent deal. Regardless of which replacements we get over the line before Saturday's trip to Barnsley, it's highly likely that every player who features will have been with the club for the duration of pre-season. So how do we feel about starting the season with the Carabao Cup? Lest we forget, we also started our 2020/21 administration season with a cup match when we blew an early 2-0 lead and lost at Fleetwood 3-2. There were so many moments from that season that I have tried to erase from my memory for good! This competition has clearly been a very low priority for the club since we've exited the Premier League, and the success of this season hardly hinges upon making a run in this cup, let alone securing a winning result on Saturday. But how good would it feel to win? There's obviously still no love lost with Barnsley after their attempts to kick us while we were down during the tumultuous summer of 2020. A strong performance and winning result would deliver a massive boost to the lads as well ahead of a very winnable trip to Cambridge to kick off the league campaign. At the bare minimum, it'd be great to see our strikers put the ball in the back of the net, our defence not allow any cheap goals, and our midfield hold their own in the centre of the pitch for the entirety of 90 minutes. If we are still going to be a work in progress, at least let us see a bit of progress. Otherwise, I wish the travelling Tics a great day out. Keep the faith! Sean Livesey: So that was that. Pre-season 2026? Erm...completed it, mate. This was never going to be an easy summer, it’s clear we’re a club in transition now. But when haven't we been in transition in the last decade and a bit? Since that glorious day in May 2013, it feels like we’ve been in a constant state of flux as a club. But this year’s pre-season has felt particularly difficult. The usual online drama about not signing half the Spanish World Cup-winning squad by the middle of July has given way to a mix of anger, apathy and genuine concern for our season's chances. The incomings started fairly well, with Max Power, Connor Barrett, Akeel Higgins, Jeremiah Chilokoa-Mullen, Hindolo Mustapha and Sonny Perkins quickly on board. Since then? Precious little. Which has - combined with some fair to say mixed results and performances in our friendly schedule - led to the current malaise among the fanbase. We know that budgets are limited, even with the amount of money brought in through Sam Tickle and Harrison Bettoni. After the defeat at Grimsby, Gary Caldwell was asked about incomings and, although admitting we weren’t where he wanted to be yet in terms of the squad, he was working towards September 1 to ensure a fully competitive squad is in place. It’s been a slow-moving transfer window this summer, with the late return of players from the World Cup not helping matters, as that will have a direct effect on us and our targets. Peterborough United’s chairman was on national radio this week saying how difficult it’s been to bring players in, indeed they too haven’t made a signing for over a month. Whether we like it or not, this is unfortunately our reality now. Gone are the days where we could go out and spend millions on a striker of the calibre of Will Grigg...and yes, it’s worrying times for us. So what kind of season can we expect? I honestly don’t know. The squad isn’t strong enough currently, but come September it could look completely different. The food chain of the pyramid will soon kick in where players move on, and that is what you would hope we’re waiting for. The club has improved in lots of ways since the Danson family took over. Our losses have been trimmed dramatically, which should make us a better prospect when prospective buyers look at the club. But in other ways we’ve been severely damaged by the ownership, be it intentionally or not. On a day-to-day basis, not owning our own stadium doesn’t affect us that much. But it does due to the EFL rules and the now more stringent spend-to-income ratio. So we aren’t where we want to be on the pitch, and the ownership situation looks worrying off it. It’s a strange start to the season this year, with the EFL Cup taking centre stage on the opening Saturday. Some managers may treat it as an extra friendly. Others may see the opportunity for a decent cup run. Still, a new season begins on Saturday, and all worries will be out of the window when the lads take to the pitch at Oakwell. There have been lots of sides over the last few years with less resources than us (even in these austere times) that do well in League One. Maybe we’ll surprise everyone this year and become one of those. Rowan Draper: The Cost of Blind Loyalty: Why I'm Stepping Away from the DW. After six years of enduring the off-the-field rollercoaster that has been the ever evolving and devolving of the club, I recently made the decision to step away from the Brick Community Stadium. This was not the emotional reaction of a fickle fan throwing their toys out of the pram, but a calculated decision based on standard business principles and expected return on investment (ROI). In football, unconditional loyalty creates a guaranteed baseline of revenue that can inadvertently enable mediocrity. When a business drifts along on a safety net of blind loyalty, it has little incentive to make the difficult, structural changes required for genuine, long-term growth. At the heart of this issue is a pervasive myth among the fanbase: the belief that turning up, buying a pie, and getting a pint on the concourse is 'doing your bit' to fund the playing squad. It isn't. The reality of our current corporate structure is that the stadium operates as a separate entity. The money you spend on matchday refreshments goes directly to the stadium company, not into the commercial accounts of Wigan Athletic Football Club. This distinction is absolutely vital because of the EFL’s newly tightened League One Salary Cost Management Protocol (SCMP) for the 2026/27 season. The updated regulations dictate that clubs can now only spend 50% of their turnover on player and managerial wages. Furthermore, the era of an owner simply writing a blank cheque to cover the shortfall is over; owner equity injections are now heavily restricted and are factored into the SCMP wage allowance at a reduced rate of just 50 per cent. Because your matchday concourse spending goes to the stadium company rather than the football club, it does not increase Wigan Athletic's official turnover. Consequently, it does absolutely nothing to increase the club’s 50 per cent wage cap under the new EFL rules. Fans spending money under the illusion that they are helping to fund a new striker are actually just sustaining the stadium's operational overheads, while the football club's playing budget remains strangled by its own lack of commercial innovation. This structural indifference makes sense when viewed from the very top. Mike Danson’s primary focus is naturally on his wider corporate empire, such as keeping GlobalData moving forward. To a billionaire portfolio manager, the football club is a fractional line item. That prioritisation is fine for him, but my investment of time, passion, and money also comes with an expected return. That return is not achieved by merely buying player after player; it is achieved through stability, functional corporate structure, and forward-thinking strategy. The excuse that 'football isn't a normal business' simply masks this lack of strategic planning. In the corporate world, 36 months is the standard benchmark for taking a distressed asset, stabilising it, and implementing a functional revenue model. We have seen major airlines and global retailers achieve this in under three years. Yet, we are still relying on an archaic, 'expensive hobby' model, failing to innovate commercially in an EFL regulatory environment that explicitly demands it to survive. We as fans have been through remarkable turbulence, of player and staff turnover. I do believe the current executive team under the watching eye and influence of Brenda Spencer and Sarah Guilfoyle, the coaching staff led by Gary Caldwell, and the players are doing their best. However, they're performing with very obvious shackles. And I can't watch good people flounder under the weight of a business model that can't sustain them, and an owner who merely bought the club as a favour - a distressed asset, with one item that makes the owner a small amount of cash in the grand scheme of things. George Arkwright: Conjecture – continuous, meaningless conjecture. As a collective, we are among the most reactive, pearl-clutching bunch in the EFL. It is quite incredible that so many of us have the foresight to write us off completely as relegation fodder before a competitive ball has been kicked. Don’t get me wrong; I do not think our squad is in the place it needs to be to ensure our play-off hopes hold true. Frankly, I think aside from the completely untried and untested aspects in our newly-acquired players, it is the weakest it has looked in a number of years. Maybe more. However, I do not think this is the time to lament our failings before they’ve even happened. We have had a turbulent decade, just based on league position alone. We have had mass exoduses before now, and we have aspired and achieved despite them. We have a habit of bringing through incredibly exciting young players and I truly believe that this season will be no different. Tobias Brenan, K'Marni Miller and Llyton Chapman all look like the next in line for greatness, and while, as mentioned, there is no guarantees of anything based on reputation alone, we are a team that has been built on defying odds and exceeding expectations. We have arguably one of the top managers in the league at our helm backed by an impassioned footballing hierarchy and to me, that, alongside the goodwill and backing of our incredibly fervent support, can often be enough to build a platform of success. This isn’t an exoneration of the ownership group and the lack of momentum we seemingly have in the transfer market. I am as unhappy as everyone else with the loss of the spine of our team. Matt Smith, Callum Wright, Joe Taylor, Jason Kerr, Will Aimson and Sam Tickle were definitely among our most consistent and prominent players last season, and to see none of them return; only to be replaced by unknown quantities, is not an ideal situation in the slightest. Still, Caldwell is seemingly building his own squad. He is seemingly quite enthusiastic about the players procured thus far, and he is seemingly still intent on bringing players in. We are obviously not going to spend exorbitantly; that much is clear considering the fees we have received for Tickle, Harrison Bettoni and Alfie Devine that are yet to see the light of day. But that doesn’t mean that we won’t spend at all. The way I see things; we have not met the expectations of the players that have gone because we potentially don’t value them as much as they value themselves. Agents' fees and ludicrously extravagant bonuses are a blight on modern football and maybe, just maybe, our management team have put their foot down and put a stop to them. Not paying over the odds for a player we don’t deem worthwhile keeping is not the same as not purchasing a player because we can afford them. Could it be that the money is there; we’re just waiting for the right opportunity and the right players to spend it on? I am aware that this could be a naive take, but I think a little positivity goes a long way, and this is all meant to be nothing more than entertainment; it doesn’t pay to be upset and angry too vigorously. Anyway, here’s hoping. Just under a month left of the transfer window, and I have every hope that we will be running into September looking a damn sight stronger than we do now. A striker, maybe a keeper, a defender or two and some wingers...it isn’t too much to ask, is it? Tony Moon: I hate everything about pre-season - player speculation (in and out), friendly matches, likely first game line-ups, writing off our season’s chances without a ball even being kicked in anger (does anyone actually kick a ball angry?). Surely that’s not in the coaching manuals as the optimal emotion to call upon when thinking about making a defence splitting pass). Oooh...does all this moaning mean I’m transitioning from being in the 'happy clappy' camp? Hope so. It’s a damn sight easier to write about things you don’t like than stuff you do! Ah well, season’s greetings everyone. Bloody hell...is it Christmas already! Martin Lally: So the dawn of another campaign is almost upon us as we turn our attention to an unusual start - a Saturday EFL Cup encounter with Barnsley! Despite putting some healthy figures up on the board in terms of numbers acquired this summer in Gary Caldwell's rebuild, the fanbase is extremely fractured and a ball is yet to be kicked competitively. Some people are calling for the internet gang to relax a bit and wait to see where we are once we get going. Others are at the opposite end of that spectrum, in absolute meltdown day to day as the season approaches. Sam Tickle's war chest has not been spent, while Jonny Smith leaving for Rochdale in League Two is the Armageddon of their week. I have to admit, I normally remain faithful to the plan, and a part of me is still in this group, as we can’t really judge what the team will achieve this season before we see them in competitive action. But I did fall from the wagon a little bit this week. A bore draw with Southport and a 0-2 loss to Grimsby compounded a poor yield of pre-season results. But as football fans, we really do forget that - whether we like it or not - those games are for match sharpness. There were some signs in those games that we are yet to find our sharpness in front of goal, and the second goal conceded at Grimsby was about as Grim as it can get. The new goalkeeper will consistently be labelled with ‘He’s no Sam Tickle’, but we have been so blessed with Sam, that if someone like James Trafford came on loan, we'd find the faults. I really believe this is a good group with some talented youngsters but, if they are good enough, are they old enough? Who knows in this unforgiving marathon of a campaign. We have seen some trimming to the squad this week, and the one that disappointed me personally the most was Joseph Hungbo moving on to Swindon on loan. A loan normally means the parent club still retains a percentage of the wages, which would seem strange. But it’s clear to me that Hungbo doesn’t fit Gary’s plans nor system, which is a shame because his heart is as big as his smile, even if the goal return simply didn’t happen. Kai Payne has also gone on loan to the other Latics across Greater Manchester, and I suspect if I’m honest that more will follow as the rest of this first month unfolds. The crazy thing about football is that every team can only hand 11 shirts each week so, regardless of the level, you have to have a balanced number. Who knows what’s around the corner? It’s clear that some of the fan base are not happy, but it’s not all of us. When Gary and Perks arrived in the spring they transformed the club from some of its darkest days into us all feeling some love for the club again. The season approaches fast and, as always with Wigan Athletic, it’s going to be a roller coaster. But do we really expect anything less? Up the ‘Let’s Go’ Tics!