I'm baffled why it's offensive to Saints fans when opinions are given that Penrith were not at their best and clearly treated the game with a bit of disrespect. You mention above they won't play any warm up fixtures and if that does turn out to be the case (and it looks likely) they clearly cannot be at their very best come the game against us and I've no issue at all in admitting that. Will they be more switched on than that Saints game come kick off? I think it's a nigh on certainty but them not being at their best and playing without warm ups still won't mean any potential Wigan win isn't a great achievement, just as the way in which they treated the Saints fixture didn't take away from your achievement.

Can't believe Penrith would come into the match having played no friendly as prep.

That said we've now sold 21k and I can't see a thousand tickets left on the seat map. What is capacity? Same as Latics/United the other night? Thought we had 24k on vs Saints last Good Friday.

We had 24,275 on GF - and I think most of that drop from 25,200 or whatever the Max capacity is was because of the unreserved H&S issue with the North/South stand were 10% need to be left unsold.
I think sales will be capped around the 23k mark
Long story that I will go into later but part of a review of the whole Stadium etc. and Latics uncovered recently that there were issues with some of the seats that have been damaged over the years.
Sourcing new ones etc. will take some time and forms part of a longer strategy of sprucing up the stadium so they took the decision to "Swap out" Good seats with bad ones.
So there are a couple of thousand seats now at the ends of the North/West/East stands that are not available and will be covered

So just to clarify - they've swapped bad seats with some good ones on the ends of the stands that barely get sat on? A shame that the capacity is reduced as it looks like demand will far exceed supply - a rarity for an RL event. Maybe the club can sell the space over the empty seats to advertisers.

“Capacity” was 22,870 the other night. A real shame to lose a couple of thousand off the crowd.

That + others things is the real world legacy of the last few Latics owners. When you sit back and look at how bad they were, you can only then shake your head when reading some of the current bile directed at Danson by the blue 1/4 of the town.

Basically yes
Without going into too much detail the issues they found with the stadium were many

When the bahrani owners issue was going in late last year early this I mentioned some things on here that the state the Latics club & the Stadium in were unbelievably bad
The Chairman/CE had spent 3 years budget in 1 year and hardly a thing had been done on a stadium that needed Millions (And into the 10's of) on it and was coming up to it's 25 yr safety review etc.
The "improvements" that had been made by the Bahranis were done by Sodexo etc. and were very much visual superficial improvements rather than Infrastructure/safety

When i get a bit more time I'll link an intersting article with an interview with Carolien Molyneux who is Chair of the Latics supporters club
I was interested in lots of stuff in the article for various reasons, but picking out one bit of it that links to this conversation was that she said the owners bought the club last minute to avoid Latics being on the brink of going out of business, not my place to say too much but I can honestly tell you I had a message about 3/4 days before it was announced he'd bought it that said if Danson doesn't agree to buy it they are practically done and that The councillors/MP etc. were let's say "Encouraging" him to help and buy them. There are bits in the interview that intimate he "isn;t a Football man" etc.

However - the point I was making is that in the article she alludes to the owner being amazed/shocked (Not in a good way) or words to that effect when they "Looked under the Bonnett".

The self entitled football fan attitude of spend spend spend is amazing, they have no idea or literally don;t care that they are/were losing £15million a year and/or were that money comes from. Even now a friend of mine showed me a message from a Latics fan stating that the average lossin the championship is £24m a year, wo losing £17million isn't "That bad"!!!!!

The whole club financially is a S**t show and it will take a long time for it to be turned around and made financially sustainable & viable, and I fully expect the vocal minorut yof their fanbase to pile in on Danson etc in the next 12months depsite in their words during both periods of Administration and nearly going into Extinction that they "Just want a club to support no matter what division etc.".
Within days that's all fogot by the majority and they want millions spending

To put some further context on this NK; were Leigh a better team than Wigan last year? The fact that they finished several places below us and lost all their games against us suggests not. Does that detract from their Challenge Cup win? Absolutely not! Does their Challenge Cup win suddenly make them a better team than us? Also absolutely not!

Wigan, as superleague champions, are a good team just as Saints were during their tenure. I'd even hazard a guess that both sides would compete well in the NRL. However, the chances of either winning the title over there would be slim to non existent, especially given the relative cap spends. Penrith have won 3 on the bounce over there so clearly the same could be said for the rest of the teams in that comp, so any win would require Penrith to be off their best, the other team to play to their potential or a combination of both. Why is it offensive or belittling to suggest that the same would have to be the case for a Saints or Wigan win? It's a strange parallel universe you would need to live in not to recognise that simple truth.

100% - see my reply I was writing at the same time as you

Dave Whelan should not get away without criticism either

And even though I know I will be accused of some of going all Happy Clapper that is why Ian Leneghan's Tenure should not be underestimated
How he took over the S**T show of 2006/7 and turned the club around in 2 years to being a financially stable standalone operation, whilst having the success of 2010 to 2023 was amazing.
But IMO his biggest achievement/success was and always will be how he has managed to transisition the clubs ownership to Mike Danson in a successful way ensuring the long term potential of the club is maximised with the new owners, after 2-3 years of Due Diligence
Something that 99% of fans will pay little attention to

You are not "happy clappy" what you are and some more level headed fans are,is that we should give a massive thanks to Ian for his tenure at the helm of this great club,and bringing Danson in and how he went about the business was sheer genius.I for one salute Ian Lenaghan.I have spoken to him at the end of season/beginning of season gatherings and what came through is his love of the club so much.