It’s never boring is it?

Latics returned to reality with a bump on Tuesday night after the relative positivity of the first few weeks under Gary Caldwell’s leadership.

Facing a resurgent Plymouth with an under strength side was always going to be a difficult ask.

To do so with fresh rumours circulating about the ownership of the club made a difficult task near impossible.

Let’s look at the on the pitch side of it, Latics looked a shadow of the team they had for the last few weeks.

A number of misplaced passes in the first few minutes allowed Plymouth to get a foot hold in the match.

Callum Mcmanaman making a rare start was screaming for an out ball that never came whilst Sam Tickle as dependable as they come dropped an easy catch for Plymouth to go ahead.

Joe Taylor who has been so important for the club over the last two months once again could have scored. If that had gone in, who knows.

But as the match went on Latics struggles continued, Plymouth doubled their lead but if we’re being honest it could have been a cricket score the way we were playing.

Half time brought changes and a renewed bit of fight from Latics.

The referee who had been as inept as the rest of the league’s officials in the first half went on to another level as the most blatant handball since Maradona went completely unpunished.

At that stage Latics were in the ascendency, who knows if a penalty and a goal back would have led to an equaliser but it certainly would have helped.

For both the linesman and the referee to see that and decide that it wasn’t handball is one of the most ridiculous decisions I have ever seen in my 35 years of watching football.

A matter of seconds later Plymouth went on to score their third of the match. Which summed up our evening and indeed the week.

Away from on the pitch matters Saturday saw the leak of a memorandum of sale for Wigan Athletic.

With owner Mike Danson apparently deciding the time was right for the club to change hands.

This was later published online by The Athletic leading to horrible flashbacks from 2020 and 2023.

With the usual lack of communication from the owners it’s difficult to gauge what’s actually happening here.

Is Danson looking for additional investment to move Latics to another level?

That’s what the manager who unfairly has been the only club official to comment on this seems to think, it’s also what the sale memorandum mentioned in terms of Danson remaining as a minority shareholder of 20%.

That kind of makes sense, there’s been no secret of the fact that the Danson family weren’t going to throw the astronomical sums of money at Latics that many others may expect and some could say led us to this position in the first place.

If someone else with bottomless pockets wishes to throw their money at getting us up the leagues, with Danson as a safety measure if the proverbial did indeed hit the fan again then that would make sense.

But all of this goes against the commitment we’re frequently told about and the commitment that Gary Caldwell has continually spoke about since his return.

Danson and his family have copped an unenviable amount of flack since taking over. Which is remarkable considering where we were and what we were in danger of becoming before he saved us.

They have sunk a small fortune in just paying off the debts and keeping us in League One.

There wasn’t a queue of wealthy individuals willing to throw their money away on a club that generates some of the lowest income in the EFL back in 2018, 2021 or indeed 2023 and there won’t be this time.

Unless you get lucky like a Wrexham or a Birmingham you’re always going to be looking over your shoulder for the next shyster.

With Danson it may not have been exciting but there was stability (of sorts) what comes next as ever is the concerning bit.

The owners need to be honest with the supporters and with the staff, if they’ve identified a way to progress under a new ownership model – fine.

But inform people. If they’ve decided they’ve had enough – well it flies in the face of everything we were told about the Wigan Sporting group and everything else.

Whatever it is we need clarity and we need it soon.

Sean Livesey

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