Will Grigg article in The Athletic


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:lol:

He didn’t ask to be signed like.


I can only imagine the pressure Wigan put him under when an absolute numpty offered 5 times what he was worth.
He is taking the mick out of my football club, just like rodwell. Of course he is scum. He simply hasn't delivered and he has that victim mentality when he loves to blame others. Like I've said on this thread already, a strikers role is also to create chances in 2020. He seems to feel like he's exempt from that when talking about creativity.
I’m one of a few of fans who have constantly wanted to give him another chance for him to come good as he has the record, once he starts scoring he will get going and we aren't playing his type of football. That interview feels like a slap in the face. He must have one of the longest contracts at the club and basically said he didn't want to come. Ive said on here a few times that people were looking into it too much when he didnt celebrate, clearly i was wrong. Granted we dont play his still of football but there were a number of howlers which were very hard to defend.
Pleased you admit you were wrong. I hope we can make his life so unbearable that he takes a paycut and leaves ASAP
 
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“At no point would I ever have wanted to leave. I would love to return. At the time, I felt as though I was forced into… not forced, but I felt like I didn’t have a choice when they accepted the offer. I had to leave. I should not have left when I did.”

It must be quite surreal to have an entire television episode dedicated to yourtransfer. Has he seen it? “No,” he reveals for the first time. “Definitely not.”

There must have been a curiosity? “It does not interest me at all. It is edited how the producers want it to be edited. I tell a lie, as I watched the previous series but after the Jack Rodwell incident (Rodwell was portrayed as being at loggerheads with the club over financial demands), it was not something I wanted to be involved in. Everyone I have ever spoken to says great things about Jack. The way his moment was edited, I felt it wasn’t a fair reflection (of him as a person) so it wasn’t something I was keen to be involved in, let alone watch.”

When did it start to feel like things may be going wrong? “Pretty quickly, just because of the expectation,” Grigg says. “I had never missed a chance like the Blackpool one in my life and I don’t think I ever would again. It was just a lapse of concentration and a genuine mistake.

“I have never really been affected by pressure. I have played in front of 50,000, I scored against Manchester City, I represented my country. It is not something that fazed me. I didn’t suit the team at all. I missed that chance but I didn’t miss many others until the end of the season. I scored five and to have scored double figures would have been a miracle in terms of the chances we created. I am not going to pretend I was playing my best football, I wasn’t at all, but I wasn’t playing in a team I was used to. I had been successful at MK Dons and Wigan. They were very different teams.”

He explains the tactical challenges at Sunderland. “It is a lot of things. Tactically, we played a 4-2-3-1 system before at Wigan. A lot of the time, I stayed away from the play and I was lucky enough to have a No 10 in Nick Powell who could create chances for me: left, right and centre. We got loads of crosses in, we had full-backs overlapping, played a bit more football and tried to get crosses into the box, which I thrive off. At Sunderland, we were a bit more direct, we didn’t have a No 10 like I was used to at previous clubs.

“At Sunderland, even now, you have a big target man in Charlie Wyke. He was used ahead of me. It tells you a lot in terms of the style of play. I don’t know if that comes from Sunderland and their background — they like to go back to front a bit — but it has definitely been the case while I have been there. They have wanted a big physical lad up front.

“The fans go back to Niall Quinn and Kevin Phillips, big man, small man. It is what they like and what they are after. Jack Ross tried to play a bit of football but that has got drastically different with the change of managers. We definitely play a lot more direct now and whether that affects what happens in the future, I do not know.”

He says: “The move was definitely close but the club decided it was not the best thing to do. It was a rival team and I was training really well, so the manager decided he did not want me to go to a rival team and do well. I am sure everyone at the club knows I am capable of that. It was difficult. I said I was happy to stay and fight for my place. But then, for the next six weeks, I was not even on the bench. That told me pretty much where I was at the time.”

How does that feel, as a record signing cut adrift? “It wasn’t easy at all,” Grigg says. “It has never happened to me in my career. I did not see it as my responsibility to seek an answer as I do not think the answer would have been anything that would have made a difference to my approach.

“I was working really hard, doing extra training and the gaffer even said that in his press conferences. Three games before the lockdown, I was back in. I was on the bench against Coventry and Gillingham, then came on for five minutes against Bristol Rovers. I was finally getting back into the mix and football stopped.

“When Phil Parkinson came in, I was the only available striker. I played the first eight or nine games and we won two of those. I only scored one goal. We were adapting to the new manager’s style and it is no secret that it was horrendous. We weren’t playing well and it took us a long time to adapt. I had a little bit of a chance but since then, my chances have been limited. It was not a secret that I wasn’t the sort of striker the manager wanted to use at that time.”

I understand why people post full articles but this doesn’t sit comfortably with me. The Athletic is behind a paywall for a reason – it’s its business model.

Many of its employees are currently under threat of redundancy – and posting full articles from it doesn’t really help.

I pay for a subscription because I think it’s fair to pay for good writing and stories as I would any service I needed.

I’m probably in the minority, I realise. The economy isn’t looking to bright, but the future for the media industry is particularly bleak. Magazines, websites and whole companies are going to the wall.

It seems people these days expect their journalism, music, etc to be free. Why?

If you were a plumber and I asked you to fix my tap for nowt or a mechanic who I expected to do an oil change for free you’d get the right hump, quite rightly.
 
Tbf when we signed him we just needed someone to put the ball in the net like Maja. We were creating a good amount of chances. Maja left... changed how we played and have been shit ever since.
Hate to think what next season is going to bring....
 
“At no point would I ever have wanted to leave. I would love to return. At the time, I felt as though I was forced into… not forced, but I felt like I didn’t have a choice when they accepted the offer. I had to leave. I should not have left when I did.”

It must be quite surreal to have an entire television episode dedicated to yourtransfer. Has he seen it? “No,” he reveals for the first time. “Definitely not.”

There must have been a curiosity? “It does not interest me at all. It is edited how the producers want it to be edited. I tell a lie, as I watched the previous series but after the Jack Rodwell incident (Rodwell was portrayed as being at loggerheads with the club over financial demands), it was not something I wanted to be involved in. Everyone I have ever spoken to says great things about Jack. The way his moment was edited, I felt it wasn’t a fair reflection (of him as a person) so it wasn’t something I was keen to be involved in, let alone watch.”

When did it start to feel like things may be going wrong? “Pretty quickly, just because of the expectation,” Grigg says. “I had never missed a chance like the Blackpool one in my life and I don’t think I ever would again. It was just a lapse of concentration and a genuine mistake.

“I have never really been affected by pressure. I have played in front of 50,000, I scored against Manchester City, I represented my country. It is not something that fazed me. I didn’t suit the team at all. I missed that chance but I didn’t miss many others until the end of the season. I scored five and to have scored double figures would have been a miracle in terms of the chances we created. I am not going to pretend I was playing my best football, I wasn’t at all, but I wasn’t playing in a team I was used to. I had been successful at MK Dons and Wigan. They were very different teams.”

He explains the tactical challenges at Sunderland. “It is a lot of things. Tactically, we played a 4-2-3-1 system before at Wigan. A lot of the time, I stayed away from the play and I was lucky enough to have a No 10 in Nick Powell who could create chances for me: left, right and centre. We got loads of crosses in, we had full-backs overlapping, played a bit more football and tried to get crosses into the box, which I thrive off. At Sunderland, we were a bit more direct, we didn’t have a No 10 like I was used to at previous clubs.

“At Sunderland, even now, you have a big target man in Charlie Wyke. He was used ahead of me. It tells you a lot in terms of the style of play. I don’t know if that comes from Sunderland and their background — they like to go back to front a bit — but it has definitely been the case while I have been there. They have wanted a big physical lad up front.

“The fans go back to Niall Quinn and Kevin Phillips, big man, small man. It is what they like and what they are after. Jack Ross tried to play a bit of football but that has got drastically different with the change of managers. We definitely play a lot more direct now and whether that affects what happens in the future, I do not know.”

He says: “The move was definitely close but the club decided it was not the best thing to do. It was a rival team and I was training really well, so the manager decided he did not want me to go to a rival team and do well. I am sure everyone at the club knows I am capable of that. It was difficult. I said I was happy to stay and fight for my place. But then, for the next six weeks, I was not even on the bench. That told me pretty much where I was at the time.”

How does that feel, as a record signing cut adrift? “It wasn’t easy at all,” Grigg says. “It has never happened to me in my career. I did not see it as my responsibility to seek an answer as I do not think the answer would have been anything that would have made a difference to my approach.

“I was working really hard, doing extra training and the gaffer even said that in his press conferences. Three games before the lockdown, I was back in. I was on the bench against Coventry and Gillingham, then came on for five minutes against Bristol Rovers. I was finally getting back into the mix and football stopped.

“When Phil Parkinson came in, I was the only available striker. I played the first eight or nine games and we won two of those. I only scored one goal. We were adapting to the new manager’s style and it is no secret that it was horrendous. We weren’t playing well and it took us a long time to adapt. I had a little bit of a chance but since then, my chances have been limited. It was not a secret that I wasn’t the sort of striker the manager wanted to use at that time.”
Record signing???
 
I understand why people post full articles but this doesn’t sit comfortably with me. The Athletic is behind a paywall for a reason – it’s its business model.

Many of its employees are currently under threat of redundancy – and posting full articles from it doesn’t really help.

I pay for a subscription because I think it’s fair to pay for good writing and stories as I would any service I needed.

I’m probably in the minority, I realise. The economy isn’t looking to bright, but the future for the media industry is particularly bleak. Magazines, websites and whole companies are going to the wall.

It seems people these days expect their journalism, music, etc to be free. Why?

If you were a plumber and I asked you to fix my tap for nowt or a mechanic who I expected to do an oil change for free you’d get the right hump, quite rightly.
Caulkin, an employee of the athletic, doesn't seem bothered about piracy in relation to saudi arabia.
 
Tbf when we signed him we just needed someone to put the ball in the net like Maja. We were creating a good amount of chances. Maja left... changed how we played and have been shit ever since.
Hate to think what next season is going to bring....
I think Maja’s conversion rate was unbelievable, as a rule we didn’t create many chances. Maja was on another level to Grigg, hence Bordeaux taking a chance on him instead of Salford.
 
I understand why people post full articles but this doesn’t sit comfortably with me. The Athletic is behind a paywall for a reason – it’s its business model.

Many of its employees are currently under threat of redundancy – and posting full articles from it doesn’t really help.

I pay for a subscription because I think it’s fair to pay for good writing and stories as I would any service I needed.

I’m probably in the minority, I realise. The economy isn’t looking to bright, but the future for the media industry is particularly bleak. Magazines, websites and whole companies are going to the wall.

It seems people these days expect their journalism, music, etc to be free. Why?

If you were a plumber and I asked you to fix my tap for nowt or a mechanic who I expected to do an oil change for free you’d get the right hump, quite rightly.
It’s free for me in the app and it’s not the full article
 
Yeah when they say things like “I probably should not have moved”, “At no point would I ever have wanted to leave Wigan”, “I felt like I didn’t have a choice”, “it hasn’t worked out for me.” It really makes me feel like he’s desperate to do well for us here.
That attitude pours out if him when you see him on the pitch for us. He's just playing for time till his next move.
 
Yeah when they say things like “I probably should not have moved”, “At no point would I ever have wanted to leave Wigan”, “I felt like I didn’t have a choice”, “it hasn’t worked out for me.” It really makes me feel like he’s desperate to do well for us here.
You can see when hes on the pitch he has really put the effort in as well! His running and energy levels know no bounds. Chasing lost cause balls, constantly making space and finding the key to unlock defences week in week out. I also love his goal celebrations, kissing the shirt and generally looking like hes thankful to be at a great club.
 
We also came 7th in the Premier League, a division Will Grigg never has seen and never will, bearing in mind he has never been remotely successful above League One level.

That interview is atrocious. It's the fans' fault, it's the managers' fault, it's Charlie Wyke's fault, it's anyone but his fault - there is apparently nothing that the lazy, arrogant, overweight, misfiring fuckwit can do to improve his own performance.

As soon as he started sticking up for Jack f***ing Rodwell it confirmed my suspicions.
Interesting that he mentions rodwell. He has the same mindset
 
We also came 7th in the Premier League, a division Will Grigg never has seen and never will, bearing in mind he has never been remotely successful above League One level.

That interview is atrocious. It's the fans' fault, it's the managers' fault, it's Charlie Wyke's fault, it's anyone but his fault - there is apparently nothing that the lazy, arrogant, overweight, misfiring fuckwit can do to improve his own performance.

As soon as he started sticking up for Jack f***ing Rodwell it confirmed my suspicions.
Stop holding back, let it all go :D
 
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