Hi Cass - love your optimism and full throttle support of the club, but to call other fans views nonsense is going too far in my opinion. Other fans, myself included (and OWTB survey was significantly in the same place [results below] - so those views are not outliers but the vast majority held by Latics fans) are being more realistic about how the season will go.

Don’t read that as lack of enthusiasm or passion, or that the fans won’t be as thrilled if it happened as we all were at Wembley - simply that history shows us that very few teams go straight up again and equally no team promoted from NL has ever been relegated in the next season. I see no defeatism in being realistic about chances - we are all hoping for victory every week - but consolidation for a season is no bad thing and our upward trajectory won’t be affected by that, but expecting promotion is (and I won’t call it nonsense) not likely.

The other fans are simply expressing that. And I’m firmly in that camp - will I be there every week shouting myself hoarse for us to win, of course - but I don’t expect it to happen every week (sadly) and I don’t expect promotion - but wouldn’t it be amazing if we did.

OWTB survey results

Champions - 0%
Automatic promotion - 1.5%
Play off places - 7%
Flirt with play offs but finish top half - 39%
Mid table mediocrity- 36%
Bottom half, flirt with relegation - 11.5%
Relegation battle but safe - 4%
Relegated - 0%