Wigan Athletic 12th Man - 30/11/12

This weeks Wigan Evening Post 12th Man entries from Vital Latics:

Looking Good

Two very good performances, three points and a great hat-trick, the week in a nutshell.

Last Saturday against Reading the Latics were far and away the better side, we could and probably should have been two goals up by half-time, the loss of Maloney and then Ramis with a full half to play put a bit of doubt in my mind, but to be honest the performance that was put in by the eleven on the field was fantastic.

Jordi Gomez had an exceptional game, he scored three great goals and with a little bit of luck he could quite easily have grabbed a couple more, his injury time winner sealed a great afternoon and really whetted the appetite for Wednesday and the visit of Man City

Of course City are a different proposition than Reading, we still gave a really good account of ourselves, looking back on the game we had three great chances before City scored, if we had taken any one of those then who knows.

A massive plus from the game against City was the performance of Adrian Lopez, he looked assured in the centre of the back three and didn't put a foot wrong all evening, also a mention must go to Dave Jones who also had a very good game

Next up is Newcastle at St. James' on Monday, they are on a terrible run and Pardew must be feeling the pressure, but they do have some quality in their team and the old adage of 'beware the wounded animal' rings true here

This season we seem to be either winning or losing, I'd take the draw from this one if offered, it would be a good point to grind out a result on a cold December night up in the North East, but that's just me erring on the side of caution and I'm sure Martinez will be planning on bringing all three points back home

With the extra two days rest we may also have one or two back from injury to bolster the squad, here's looking forward to another good week

Barry Worthington


Crisis, What Crisis?

Despite going into last weekends game with injury worries, the side that ultimately lined up, still looked quite familiar. There was a feeling that the game would prove to be an acid test in terms of squad strength, were we more than just a first eleven?

As it turned out this would be further tested with injuries to Maloney and Ramis. We passed the test thanks to the efforts of all players, but there was a sweet justice in the headlines being grabbed by Jordi Gomez.

The idiots (there is no other word for them), that started to boo their own players, and Gomez in particular, perversely made the day all the more enjoyable for myself and my brother in law. He is a staunch supporter of Gomez, and was rightly having his day ruined when having to ask his fellow supporters to actually support the team. The irony of the Wigan supporters around us having to eat the humble pie as Jordi played better and better and ultimately sealed the points was not lost on us, and it made our afternoon, as did the fact that one or two were actually won over.

Fast forward to Wednesday night and the test of squad strength got even harder, with more players missing and the opposition looking decidedly stronger.

The most obvious barometer of the relative strength of the 2 sides was the benches. We had young players like McManaman, Fyvie and Redmond on the bench, they were sat across from Carlos Tevez, and Edin Dzeko and England International James Milner. The fact was we performed well. For the vast majority of the game, we were equal to the champions, if not edging it, Lopez having a particularly good game.

We might not have taken any points, but we take great heart. There is no injury crisis at Wigan Athletic, there might be injuries, but that simply means the players that have performed are not the same ones as performed a couple of weeks ago.

Paul Thorp



This weeks podcast was recorded at the DW Stadium prior to the Man City game

We had Barry, Dan, Rob, Paul and Gareth on location, we are chatting about the win over Reading last Saturday, plus we look ahead to the City game and try for a bit of analysis at the end.

You can download the podcast from itunes, you can download from our hosting site www.buzzsprout.com , or simply click play on the embedded player below

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