Wigan Athletic - 12th Man 9/12/11

This weeks 12th Man page in the Wigan Evening Post features one contribution from Vital Latics

Early Promise Is Quick To Diminish

For the first ten minutes of Saturday's game against Arsenal, the Latics were quite good, slick passing, good movement off the ball and two decent chances created, just a pity that for the next eighty minutes we were shocking.

Fair enough it was a resurgent Arsenal side that were on song, but even so at least attempt to put a tackle in! Martinez's post match comment of '…we allowed Arsenal too much space on the ball.' was a bit of an understatement, backing up and defending deep against quality teams doesn't work and the fact that we conceded just four goals was quite fortunate as the Gunners were totally dominant.

The most disappointing aspect of the game though for me, was the lack of support that we gave to the man in possession, the whole team were stagnant, no movement to create space off the ball gave little option other than to run down blind alleys and give the ball back to Arsenal, who in contrast never stopped working their triangles and simply ripped us apart.

Thankfully we have a chance to redeem matters on Saturday with a jaunt down the M6 to face West Brom. The Baggies are almost within reach being just six points better off, but if we are to have a repeat of the Sunderland result then the work rate needs to increase. Conor Sammon playing the striker role on Saturday was left totally exposed, the midfield simply didn't get close to him and our attacks fizzled out, 'come on Roberto get some attacking intent back in the team'.

Personally I'd shuffle the pack for the trip to the Hawthorns, surely Crusat deserves a start, Alcaraz is back from suspension and in my opinion should come in for Caldwell. West Brom aren't any great shakes and this is a game that we should/need to be going for, especially with games against Chelsea and Liverpool to follow we need something to give us a little festive cheer.

Barry Worthington

















Latics and Proud



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