What do you have to do to be 'good enough for Wigan?'

[DaveO]

Thats not true. There is a cap. Which is/was 1.8m. We didnt reach that according to Il and he blamed it on the sponsorship. Bare in mind Saints had a cracking sponsor, cup winning receipts and not bad attendances. So they could probably spend more than us.

The cap has changed several times and it has not been as high as £1.8m for a while now but lower and as low as £1.6m.

And what is this "we didn't reach the cap" nonsense? There used to be a rule that said you could only spend 50% of your turnover on players or to the salary cap limit, whichever was the smaller figure. Was he suggesting Wigan did not turnover £3.2m?

Under Whelen we always made the 50% rule. That rule has now gone anyway (it went when the cap went live last season) and clubs can spend to the cap limit regardless of income. So the only reason you won't "make the cap" is if you are not prepared to pay the wages.

At the moment we are actually allowed to spend MORE than any other club because when Mo and DW tried to defer wages and were told they could not do so (thus we broke the cap) we got a credit spread over several seasons added to our cap.

There may have been one season where IL was in charge where this 50% limit was still in force. So if we didn't have the turnover that season that is IL's fault. DW always made sure we did.

Blaming it on lack of sponsors is a none starter as we only lacked a sponsor for this season (and the 50% rule does not apply anyway any more).

As to Saints sponsor, Earth I think it was, they went bust! Unless they paid all monies up front (which I don't think they did) then Saints had a short fall in sponsorship receipts for at least one season.

In contrast the deal Wigan have with Mecca is all paid up front which I know for a fact.

Dave

[pedro]

may be noncesnse Dave but it is from IL. He stated in the fans forum that we could not compete with Leeds and Saints as we didnt reach the full capacity of the cap.

he stated we need more money coming in to reach this and blamed it on the poor sponsorship before hand. He used this excuse as to why we didnt reached the turnover set out by the RFL for the grading scheme.

He was only in charge this season and last so if the rule changed this year then that wouldnt affect last year which is what IL referred to.

[DaveO]

may be noncesnse Dave but it is from IL. He stated in the fans forum that we could not compete with Leeds and Saints as we didnt reach the full capacity of the cap. He stated we need more money coming in to reach this and blamed it on the poor sponsorship before hand.

Without the 50% rule I can only assume he meant we did not spend to the maximum allowed under the cap not that we were not allowed to.

If we didn't then what use is a rich chairman who won't dip into his own pocket every now and again?

He used this excuse as to why we didnt reached the turnover set out by the RFL for the grading scheme.

That isn't the same thing. The RFL said we relied too much on our benefactor (or words to that effect) so marked us down a point. It doesn't mean wewould have been prevented from spending to the limit of the cap.

He was only in charge this season and last so if the rule changed this year then that wouldnt affect last year which is what IL referred to.

The cap went live last year and that is when the 50% rule went. So he has never run the club and had to comply with this rule. As I said he also has had a credit for the deferred wages last season and this (and maybe the next two if I recall correctly). So in theory Wigan could spend more than the cap limit by a small amount.

Therefore when he says we could not compete with Leeds and Saints as we didn't reach the full capacity of the cap I really don't understand what he means unless it is simply that although we were allowed to spend (for example) £1.6m we didn't.

I am now also confused because he has said things like "we only have £20K left on the cap". What does he mean by that? There is no 50% rule so he can't mean we are within £20K of a lower limit than the maximum allowed. I think everyone has taken statements like that to mean we are right up to the full cap limit so if the cap is £1.6m we have spent £1,580,000 on wages.

If we have not spent that amount leaving us £20K shy of the full cap then his statements are misleading.

Dave

[LORENZO]

Why are we into the salary cap here guys.
Look at the 'Who do you keep post' and you will see that we want to keep most of the present squad despite them not playing to the standard we expect. Truth is of course, is that it is all down to leadership, both by management and the senior players. What other reason is there for Wakey, with, on paper,a far poorer team than the Wigan squad, performing like demons (with several senior players out to). Don't we all wish that our team played with the same 'never say die spirit'. We can pick out other teams that are performing well who would also appear to have a poorer squad than us.
The Wires would appear to have similar problems to the Wigan team and I think Tony Smith will lay the law down there.
Hopefully, someone will arrest Wigan's slide before they improve and we become the fall guys instead. Or, are we already there?

[pedro]

may be noncesnse Dave but it is from IL. He stated in the fans forum that we could not compete with Leeds and Saints as we didnt reach the full capacity of the cap. He stated we need more money coming in to reach this and blamed it on the poor sponsorship before hand.

Without the 50% rule I can only assume he meant we did not spend to the maximum allowed under the cap not that we were not allowed to.

If we didn't then what use is a rich chairman who won't dip into his own pocket every now and again?

He used this excuse as to why we didnt reached the turnover set out by the RFL for the grading scheme.

That isn't the same thing. The RFL said we relied too much on our benefactor (or words to that effect) so marked us down a point. It doesn't mean wewould have been prevented from spending to the limit of the cap.

He was only in charge this season and last so if the rule changed this year then that wouldnt affect last year which is what IL referred to.

The cap went live last year and that is when the 50% rule went. So he has never run the club and had to comply with this rule. As I said he also has had a credit for the deferred wages last season and this (and maybe the next two if I recall correctly). So in theory Wigan could spend more than the cap limit by a small amount.

Therefore when he says we could not compete with Leeds and Saints as we didn't reach the full capacity of the cap I really don't understand what he means unless it is simply that although we were allowed to spend (for example) £1.6m we didn't.

I am now also confused because he has said things like "we only have £20K left on the cap". What does he mean by that? There is no 50% rule so he can't mean we are within £20K of a lower limit than the maximum allowed. I think everyone has taken statements like that to mean we are right up to the full cap limit so if the cap is £1.6m we have spent £1,580,000 on wages.

If we have not spent that amount leaving us £20K shy of the full cap then his statements are misleading.

Dave

he said he spent what he could but it didnt equate to the max. You will have to ask IL what he meant.

[mickh]

Good shout, Lorenzo, is Mr Lenigan a starry eyed supporter like we all are, but not leading. Could be his other interests are suffering in these credit crunch times and not fully committed to the job? Which is understandable.

We know Mr Noble is not leading. Early season, just putting out safe sides with the enphasis on defence (with the worst fullback I can remember). That idea didn't work because the opposing teams came with a positive game plan, and a better pre-season training regime so they hit the ground running, hence 3 matches lost, lost confidences all around, and more hair off the top of my head.

Captain Shaun O'Loughlin? I just don't know! I'll start off on a positive - he has to be in the team because his workrate is second to none, tackling alone he should be the first one on the teamsheet. After that? He reminds me of an Ian Potter kind of player, a workhorse who would play all day, but vocally you would not know he was there. We've tried the quiet approach for 3 years and it's not worked now lets try some shouting, preferably on the training pitch first!
Otherwise a change of captain is a necessity to convert mediocrity to full scale effort and "telling offs" (Cleaned-up) to who needed them.
It doesn't seem a happy camp at the present.