Latics’ new club shop, imaginatively titled the Latics Club Shop, was unofficially up and running this morning. Stocking such merchandise as Wigan Athletic branded golf tees, babies’ bibs and cuddly teddy bears, it’s already looking a bit more promising than last year’s Latics WN1 trial run.

This time round, there were no photographers or guest appearances (at least not when I was there, about 10ish), rather a selection of half price Latics merchandise so we could all be ripped off by 50 rather than 100 percent. The glitz and glamour will be present on Tuesday afternoon as a selection of the Wigan squad and backroom staff officially launch the new Wigan Athletic home kit for the 2010 season.

And it’s certainly an improvement on the previous incarnation, with a much brighter atmosphere and better ‘shop’ feel. The one next to Ryman’s felt as though it was run by Arkwright from Open All Hours or something, a dark (and slightly smelly) cave in the deepest depths of the Galleries.

Latics’ marketing gurus seem to have learned from the WN1 experiment, and there’s no doubt the more spacious location across from BB’s Cafe is a lot more welcoming and professional.

As for the volume of stock, there’s just about the same as there used to be, but it’s all laid out in a more pleasing and accessible fashion. No comfy sofas though, sadly.

That didn’t stop the punters piling in, though. Things looked quite busy while I was there, so maybe the stock clearout gimmick was somewhat successful – there were three assistants on the counter so I’m guessing the big cheeses expected a hectic opening day.

Speaking of big cheeses, guess whose book was displayed rather prominently by the checkouts? That’s right, the Mighty Gorgonzola himself, Dave Whelan. He was nowhere to be seen, though. Think he might be on holiday in Barbados or something.

Jason Koumas: On his way

Also seemingly on his way out is Jason Koumas, who shall spend the forthcoming season on loan to Cardiff City, where I am sure he shall do extremely well. He seems to thrive in the Championship environment, but struggles for consistency at the higher levels these days.

At an initial price tag of £5.2 million, I would say Jase also failed to live up to expectations in the long term. He did score one more than Kapo, though, and will be remembered for his goal against Aston Villa in the first game of last season. At least his time at the club wasn’t a complete failure, more of a disappointment.

In (hopefully) more enterprising news, the new Wigan Athletic store — really a branch of DW will be open for business tomorrow afternoon Sports — with a ‘stock clearout‘ taking place. The official opening will be on Tuesday afternoon, so there’s no chance of a last minute cancellation due to a 9-1 hammering this time. At least, with the greatest of respect, I don’t expect Dundee to ‘do a Tottenham’ on Sunday afternoon.

Bob and co. will be in the Galleries at 2PM to launch Latics’ new home strip, but I still dunno where our away kit is hidden. Maybe the sheer negativity over last season’s ‘tangerine dream‘ has put the marketing department off to the extent we shall take to the pitch against Tottenham on the 28th in skins. Man, I know the government cuts are taking their toll on the country, but I never thought it’d get that bad. Before long, we may all need to donate our old replica away strips to stop our lads contracting pneumonia or something.

Martinez: Back in the public eye

Charles N’Zogbia, who certain members of the JWAW team seem to think is on his way to Birmingham (not myself though), has been called up to the French squad for their clash with Norway in midweek. We all know, however, that this is because all Les Bleus’ ‘best’ players have thrown their toys out of the pram, opening the door for Charlie and a bunch of other relative unknowns to sneak in almost unnoticed. Enjoy it while it lasts, people, for it’s only a matter of time before an even bigger drama queen reinstates the old guard in spectacular fashion.

Latics’ Honduran connection was out in force at the club shop today as Hendry Thomas and Maynor Figueroa were on hand to launch a limited edition poster celebrating Figs’ 60-yard goal against Stoke in December.

Attendees could also attempt to recreate the wonder strike out in the DW car park, where a training goal had been set up near the West Stand ticket office. As it transpired, not many managed to score — even from a distance ever so slightly shorter than sixty yards — though Hendry and Maynor had no problem at all.

A group of schoolkids, probably bussed in to ensure at least someone turned up on a Thursday afternoon, cheered heartily as Figueroa successfully placed the ball into the net just as he had done four months ago.

Next, it was into the DW shop where a seven-foot memorial to that strike had been erected (read: pasted over an old display) to be signed by the man himself. The guys hung around a bit longer to sign a few more shirts and autographs before being whisked off for an interview with Premier League World.

Figs points out some imperfections in his poster

A selection of the Latics squad were also present, probably for a press conference of some sort, but they were off in their fancy cars before the PR stuff began. Gary Caldwell visited the shop at around 1PM to pick up a couple of things, but I’m not sure if anyone recognised him as he had to queue like everyone else!

Maynor Figueroa signs some autographs

Rodallega, Kingson, Amaya and Diame all stopped to sign programmes and shirts for the fans who’d camped outside Rigaletto’s for half an hour. In fact, the vast majority of the Latics first team turned up, including Jason Scotland in a fetching grey tracksuit, and James McCarthy, who spared five minutes to chat with the kids from St John Fisher.

Representatives from the big media players clamoured to grab footage and the odd interview, with the likes of BBC Five Live, North West Tonight and Premier League World congregating around the players’ lounge.

Expect to see extended coverage of the event in Saturday’s matchday magazine and Latics Player, still the only Latics subscription service marginally more expensive than a kick in the nuts from Vinnie Jones. Alternatively, you could wait a couple of days until I get a short video of the afternoon uploaded to YouTube, which you’ll be able to view for free. Free I say!

Figs' new poster complete with signature, as seen in the club shop

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Edman has left the club on a free transfer

It was announced last week that Latics’ Swedish international left back Erik Edman had returned to Helsingborgs, the club where he made his name, having struggled to regain a place in Martinez’s first team after a spate of injuries.

It’ll be surprising to some that Edman made only nine league appearances in his two-year spell at Wigan, and that he was once a regular fixture in the Swedish international team. However, a short time after he joined the Latics, he sustained a serious knee injury that would keep him out for the remainder of the 2007/2008 season and also Euro 2008.

Unfortunately for Edman, he’ll be remembered by many as a member of the Wigan side that lost 9-1 to Tottenham in November. Since then, he has been on the fringes of the first team, on standby as replacement for Maynor Figueroa, and the club have allowed him to move to Helsingborgs on a free transfer to find first team football.

I prefer to remember Erik as the man who, up until his injury, so ably filled the void left by Leighton Baines. Though his appearances were limited, he impressed under Steve Bruce and were it not for an unfortunate challenge, I reckon we’d have had a long term stalwart that would have gone down in Latics lore as one of the best defenders we’ve had at the club.

Alas it was not to be, and with Figueroa now the man in possession of the left back berth, we bid Erik a fond farewell and wish him every success in the future. I really hope he goes on to bigger things, and the Tottenham game does not ruin his career because we’ve seen plenty of talent there, a sentiment echoed by the Swedish FA, who’ve called on him for international duty on 57 occasions.

J-Rob MBE

Former Wigan striker Jason Roberts has received an MBE for his work encouraging young people in Britain and the Caribbean to play football.

The Jason Roberts Foundation was formed in 2007 to provide opportunities for young people to take part in sporting and cultural activities and to participate in learning programmes enhancing educational achievement.

Roberts bagged 37 goals in 93 games for the Latics and helped them to achieve promotion from the Championship in the 2004/2005 campaign. He went on to score Wigan’s first goal in the Premiership from the penalty spot against Sunderland the following season and steer the Latics to mid-table safety.

He is perhaps best known for his winning goal in the 2005/2006 Carling Cup semi-final second leg, which sealed his team a place in the final of the competition for the very first time. The following season, he signed for Blackburn in a £3million deal, and has since gone on to score seventeen goals in 86 appearances for the Lancashire side. He came on as a sub in Saturday’s match against his old club, whereupon he received a polite round of applause from the Wigan crowd.

Roberts, now 31, has also had successful spells at Bristol Rovers and West Brom in a career spanning almost fifteen years and nine clubs. He has also played 22 games for Grenada, during which he has scored 12 goals.

It’s his charity work, however, for which he’s been awarded an MBE in the New Year’s honours list. In this vid, J-Rob and members of the Liverpool Legends team talk a bit about the Jason Roberts Foundation and play in a charity match in Grenada.

*Statistics correct as of 31/12/09.

Bob addresses his adoring fans

Roberto Martinez hosted his first fans forum as manager of Wigan Athletic in front of 350 supporters at the DW Stadium’s Fitness Lounge last night.

Unfortunately JWAW could not personally make it, but thanks to the wonders of the Internet (as in, the various Latics messageboards) we are able to bring you the general gist of the event.

If appropriating content is good enough for Rupert Murdoch then it’s sure as heck acceptable for a small-time weblog read by about five people (two of which passed away more than fifty years ago). Anyhow…

The evening was a chance for fans to pose questions about anything and everything to do with Wigan Athletic, and by all accounts Roberto was his usual honest self, answering all queries — which addressed a wide range of topics, from his style of play and tactics to Wigan’s status as a ‘selling club’ — calmly and with aplomb.

“There are no difficult questions” said Martinez to Latics Player’s Graham Lovett. “As long as everyone knows what we’re trying to do, it’s easy to find a real answer.”

“I’ve said it before, I want to know what the fans feel. All that we’re doing is for the fans. Unless we are together, we cannot share all our worries regarding the direction of the football club, and that’s vital.”

Amongst numerous other things, Roberto expressed his thoughts on Chris Kirkland and Titus Bramble, who, in his opinion, “should be in the England squad“. In the case of the former, he theorised it must only be a personal issue as opposed to lack of ability keeping Kirky out of the national setup.

With regards to potential signings, Bob revealed that he’s already got four new faces lined up for the January transfer window, one of which is pretty much a done deal. We can only speculate as to whether this is Jackson Martinez, who was seen at the Dee Dubya last week, but we’ve definitely got a juicy Colombian national partnership up front if this is indeed the case.

Roberto revealed that Maynor Figueroa personally turned down an offer from Sunderland in the summer, casting major doubts upon reports he is to follow Steve Bruce and Lee Cattermole to the Black Cats. Figs will also be fit for next weekend’s Premier League game against the North-East outfit, so you get the feeling Erik Edman will be going all out to grab that first choice left-back spot from him with a good performance against Tottenham on Sunday.

I think there’s a marked difference between Steve Bruce during his time at Wigan and Roberto Martinez. You got the feeling that, whilst Brucey was wholly professional about his job, there wasn’t that same spark, flair and passion for Wigan Athletic that Bobby brings to the position. There’s no doubting who the fans prefer, and on a personal level, I’d take Roberto over Bruce even if it did mean the club had to take what looks like a backward step.

Which brings me on to the subject of playing style. A well-publicised comment from the 90-minute session came from former WISH FM commentator Harold Ashurst, who asked Roberto whether we tend to overpass at times, citing the fact we made over 450 passes against Hull and still lost. An unabashed Martinez retorted “it was actually 527″ before eloquently explaining why that wasn’t the reason for the loss.

Talk about knowledgeable! He also brought up the point that Bramble and Boyce were making an average of ten passes per game last season but so far have been making over 150 this campaign.

Under Bruce, there seemed to be a general lethargy in the final months of the 08/09 season, a general ‘oh, we’ve already achieved what we’ve set out to do’ attitude (the exception, of course, being against Manchester United, but who wouldn’t get excited by such a prospect, especially with the pressure off?). Bob was keen to stress there won’t be a repeat of this as, unlike other managers in campaigns past, he has not set an upper limit on what he would like the club to achieve this season.

Roberto reiterated that he understands our position as a ‘selling club’, but denied that is always a bad thing, pointing to Spanish side Sevilla who have executed a similar business model with relative success.

When Martinez took over some months ago, he made a commitment to changing attitudes at the club from grass roots to first team. This has been evident in both the reserve and youth teams who haven’t always been that successful in terms of results but have definitely adopted a more European, passing style that we’ve got going — to pretty good effect — in the first team.

The Gaffer concedes it’ll take a few more months for the players to settle in to this new style and then we can really start going places with the team he’s moulded. All very positive stuff.

A few rungs down, though, he isn’t happy with the current state of youth football at the club. He intends to make it a personal quest to bring a Wigan-born player into the first team, the first since Gary Walsh and Colin Greenall some years ago. There are, however, one or two very good young players we haven’t had the chance to see yet. I would personally keep an eye on Joe Holt.

Other topics that were brought up include:

• The second goalie position. Martinez heaped praise upon Pollitt, who’s still giving it 10/10 in training, but hinted that we’ll be looking for a young keeper to fill his position because, of course, Polly can’t go on forever.

• Jason Scotland just needs to “break his duck” and he’ll be scoring freely once again, but could do with the backing of the fans.

• Remember the Spanish newspaper incident a couple of weeks ago? Well, apparently the club is getting extensive coverage in Marca, which a rival newspaper was not happy with. Bob agreed to do an exclusive interview for the latter, which, as we know, was pretty sensationalist and not massively accurate.

There are a whole load more issues which will perhaps be expanded upon in even more detail in a later post, but these are the main points I can glean from the general talk of the town. Sounds like it was a wonderful evening and I really am kicking myself for not buying a ticket before they all sold out. “Get one next week”, I thought to myself.

The fact the event sold out so quickly is testament to how much Roberto is loved at the club, and indeed he received a standing ovation before taking 45 minutes to mingle with the assembled supporters.

As a player, I always had that relationship with the fans, so it hasn’t been a surprise… We’ll make sure that Wigan Athletic is a club to be proud of and the football we play is recognised everywhere. — Roberto Martinez, interviewed by Graham Lovett for Latics Player

Arsene Wenger, you’d better watch out.

Cheers to Batch_wafc at Wiganer.net, Worbo at VitalLatics and the Official Latics website for their reports on the evening, which were heavily used as a base for this post. Image is courtesy the official Latics website.

Latics’ 3rd Round FA Youth Cup match against Tottenham Hotspur will be held at the DW Stadium

Entry on the night will be £5 and £1 for children. However, season ticket holders will be able to watch the game for free – that’s zero pounds and zero pence. Fans are being urged to come along, as this will be a great opportunity to witness the future of Wigan Athletic first hand.

Remember the Channel M Wigan Athletic programme, The Latics Football Show, that was on for about half an hour on a weekday night? I could never watch it because our house isn’t within the broadcast area for the station, which is a bit stupid really considering Hindley is supposed to be in Greater Manchester.

Nevertheless, I remember watching an episode via the website and really enjoying seeing how our youth team were getting along. I don’t think this programme exists any longer — probably down to financial restrictins, Credit Crunch and all that — but I would love for them to bring it back. In fact, if some influential bigwig is reading this, then I would gladly offer my services for any such revival, even if it did consist mainly of fans rambling on for half an hour.

The top four teams all have their own channel, so why can’t Latics? Please don’t fob me off with the Latics Player, that’s not on the telly and you have to pay a subscription for it. Well, maybe I’m clutching at straws here — we can’t claim to be anywhere near as popular as those clubs — but at the very least there ought to be a proper telly programme about Wigan Athletic.

Veering tentatively back to the topic in hand, the club are hopeful of attracting a decent attendance to the match, which will take place three weeks on Wednesday. In a similar fashion to the Latics-St. Mirren friendly in August, only the West (Springfield) Stand will be open, and it’s worth repeating that season ticket holders are allowed free admittance. Remember to bring your card along, though, as you’ll need to produce it at the turnstiles.

Wigan have released an official statement thanking Latics’ fans for their support during Sunday’s match against Fulham. This comes less than 24 hours after the BBC’s slightly dubious editing on their Match of the Day 2 programme, which some claim portrayed Wigan Athletic fans in a negative light. It is unknown whether the two are related, as it could be argued that the club were going to release the statement regardless of what Match of the Day claimed.

Whatever the situation, Latics’ Commercial Director Paul Hunt was quick to heap praise on the home support:

It was a great effort by the fans with so many taking up the various offers. The real plus point was that supporters are supporting the Club in pushing attendance with so many new, and in particular, young faces at the game. It bodes well for the future. — Paul Hunt, wiganlatics.co.uk

From a personal point of view, attendance and atmosphere-wise, the game was a marked improvement on some other matches this season. It has been pleasing to see the South Stand in particular fill with each home game that has passed, to the point where it was visibly packed for Sunday’s match. It was also good to see some of our armed forces lads attending the match on Remembrance Sunday, and perhaps in future we could think about letting some of them in for free. After all, I should think they’ve earned it.

The atmosphere was excellent, and although it didn’t quite reach the highs of Chelsea in September,  it did come a close second as fans tried their best to push Wigan towards a second goal.

You should be proud of yourselves for the support you are giving to the team and it may be a cliché but you really made a big difference. I for one am looking forward to the next home game versus Sunderland for another great performance from our supporters – thanks again. — Roberto Martinez, wiganlatics.co.uk

Once again I must stress that none of this is meant as a slant at Fulham’s fans in any way whatsoever. Though there were only around a hundred of them, they were a credit to their club, getting behind Fulham whenever they could, and in the end were rewarded with a handy away point.

Plus, they got the North stand concourse all to themselves. That said, I don’t know what’s in there – they could have changed everything since they converted it to the away end. Perhaps there are riot police and torture devices? Dunno, a Fulham fan will have to inform me on this.

If any of you souls that braved the Wigan weather this weekend are reading this blog, I would very much appreciate a comment! That goes for both Fulham and Wigan fans, by the way.

• See the full club statement here.
• Additional thanks goes to VitalLatics, who could front a campaign to boycott Match of the Day.