Buy everyone in Leigh a Wigan shirt.

Buy one of the many empty pubs/clubs about the town for a proper supporters club away from the corporate hell of DW.

Desperate for a centre imo

Would love a suppporters club/museum somewhere in town.

Even those fans who totally trust IL will want to see a couple of signings, and rightly so.

No-one could realistically expect the likes of Inglis or Slater, but there are holes in the squad that now need filling, and the fans will be justifiably miffed if more Bowen-type signatures (i.e. accomplished, high-level players, not journeymen) aren't acquired.

Of course, those guys aren't available at the drop of a hat, so people may need to be patient. No doubt any failure to wave a magic wand and make it happen straight away will only fuel the conspiracy theorists suspicions that IL is actually using the cash to build himself a new swimming pool, but in the real world I think we can afford to cast our eye over the markets with enthusiasm.

I agree with Pemps that we seem increasingly weak at centre. Now that we have buckets of money to strengthen, and masses of salary cap space to play with, it could be felt that the likes of Thornley and/or Gelling aren't the long-term answer.

We are at least 1 or 2 star quality players short. It's a no brainer.

The problem is with transfer fees who would you sign?

Realistically?

Only name that stands out to me would be Ben Crookes and or Lineham, to fill the centre/wing void, and I think to call that realistic is a stretch.

We then look to the NRL to improve is where the clubs are swimming with cash and even if they accepted a transfer fee the players wages are vastly inflated so you get less bang for your buck.

Blake Ferguson would be a great signing but would he get a visa? No transfer fee needed, but he would be a stop gap whilst the heat died down in Australia.

Its a tough one, but some investment MUST go into the infrastructure, be it coaching or otherwise.

A leagues club akin to what they have in Aus would be nice but I'll dream on for that one.

As much as I'd like to see us sign some world class players the reality is English Super League is that poor that I don't think they can be attracted.

You'd have to wonder in the salary cap world whether we could attract even someone from another club such as Watkins/Yeaman. Would be good if we could though.

That said I don't watch the NRL - is there anyone over there we think we could attract realisitically?

The latest accounts contained a warning that this year wasn't looking great financially for Wigan so may well go against some of these costs referred to eg Wigan TV.

At last years shareholders meeting IL stated that Wigan were PLANNING a loss for the year due to set up costs of Wigan t.v, Central Park etc so as you say some of the money may be used to offset that.

Im gob smacked by that, I think It was stated last year Central Park costs hit the accounts and that the loss in the CC last season hit the accounts hard, but this year seems to have been a better year On and Of the pitch.

Is the revenue down considerably in 2013 ?

have a feeling that a good proportion of it will be investing in the future of the club, youth developement.

The figures Paul quotes are for 2012, the 2013 figures will not be available until August/September 2014.

I didn't quote any figures. The "warning" related to performance going forward eg Dec 2012 to Nov 2013.

I'd imagine since the accounts were produced then a Wembley appearance would have improved the outlook.


Is Wigan TV considered a worthwhile expenditure. I cannot ever seeing it being self-funding let alone generating profit.

I was thinking about this the other day weirdly enough, would love for it to happen. Failing that I'd like to see the money go on further improving our scouting and player development. I really do think growing our own is the way to go in the current climate.

Have been thinking the very same over the last year or so.

Agree with this.

We have cash to keep all the projects ticking over like Central Park, the Welsh link up, the academy set up etc but ultimately we should be able to go out and cherry pick the players we want (within realistic parameters) now rather then feed off the scraps that may be left out of contract. We've already showed a willingness to do that last year by signing Smith, Green and Taylor for decent, yet realistic fees and that needs to continue. We've again done that by signing Hopkins and it sounds like they will do the same for Clubb (rightly or wrongly).

It's players like Daryl Clark, Danny Kirmond and Dean Collis I'd be looking at. All reasonably realistic options that would add to our squad. The rumours are the first two are Warrington bound though.

Lenagan floated the supporters bar/club idea at a fans forum a few years back but wasn't the rumour that Whelan had threatened to put the rent up at the stadium if we went ahead?

He was supposedly miffed because this type of club would take away from the taking inside the stadium and its bars pre and post match.

I'm more worried that we don't seem to have been in for the top quality SL players that have become available, the likes of Moon, Chase and it now appears Clark and Briscoe are being added to that bracket. Yet underwhelming and so-called "project" signings like Lauaki, the apparent signings from London and to some extent the signings of Dudson and Gelling keep happening. The only one under this policy who can be deemed an outright success is Ben Flower IMO.

It's suggested we'll get £700k for Sam. Over 3 years that's approx £230k+ a year.
Mossop will fetch £100k over two years so that's £50k a year.
Hock £250k over 2 years - £125k a year.
So that's over £400k a year for two years then Sam's last £230k.

IL may put some into the finances of the club and try and get rid of the historical debt. He's been doing that and not far to go so he may wipe it out.
Then he has a trophy winning team, plus a profitable club which is debt free.
Some acheivement is that!

There have been rumours Tom Briscoe may come here but that won't take a fee and I can't see him earning more than Pat.
There are replies here saying we need a left centre and we all know why. However, Thornley had an imposiible job replacing Carmont and with no one readily available I'd like to see how he goes next season before bringing in an NRL player.
We'd all like to see the squad strengthen but we aren't going to get Clarke here to play sub to MicMac. Wire are after him as both their 9s will retire in the next two years. I'm like most on here, want a position filling but can't come up with a name that is ever likely to sign for the club.
If Briscoe doesn't sign then I'd willingly go with Burgess and Manfredi for the 5 shirt.
One thing we do need is a top class goal kicker. Pat won us many a game by out kicking the opponents kicker, like HullFC away! Either Smith and Charnley had better start practising big time or we need to sign some one.
A top class kicker would be my spending priority.
Owens has just signed a new deal at Widnes so that would take a fortune to prise him away. He's a good wingman and a far better goal kicker. That's one!
Any other names?

Getting to Wembley and winning the cup will help there too

Transfer fees, probably not, as I don't see anyone likely to be available that would dramatically improve our squad - the top clubs are unlikely to sell, and the cash-strapped ones don't have anyone we'd really want.

just a thought, if Briscoe goes to Leeds who out of Ben Jones-bishop or Callum Watkins would be surplus from the current backline.

There is nothing wrong with the scouting and player development as it is. As an example we just signed a young lad on pro forms from Cumbria on a four year deal. It's working well as it is.

The money needs to go on new players, period. Central Park? South Wales? No way.

People can argue there are no world class players about but this misses the point. Whoever is the best available is who we need to sign. Not signing the best available because they don't come up to some false measure of the standard of who we should be signing is nuts.

We also ought to be able to prise away players who aren't officially available. If the NZW can do it to us, we can do it to other clubs here.

Kirmond and Briscoe spring to mind as two candidates that in the current climate you could easily justify spending cash on.

Their clubs may even hold out for a larger fee than you might expect given we are cash-rich but so what? The market will determine their worth and we either pay it or pass up the chance to improve the squad with these kind of players.

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