What the bosses said

Following yesterdays Cup tie between Wigan Athletic and Chelsea Steve Bruce and Avram Grant both had a lot to say

Lets see what:

Latics boss Steve Bruce:

On the Brown/Makalele incident

'There's no incident as far as I'm concerned, and I asked all of their bench 'did you see it?'


'They've ran up and jumped out of their skins because Makelele is on the floor, yet not one of them saw the incident, like I didn't.


'I don't mind if there's an incident to shout about, but I feel it is handbags. There's nothing in it at all, and it's a shame we are talking about it.'

On the game

'It is down to individual error. For me we had a chance in this cup tie, and it was never going to be a classic because of the state of the pitch.


'Both sets of players have done their best to make it a cup tie because it is difficult.


'But if we've intentionally tried to play offside then we are at fault. You can't take a risk when you've somebody like Anelka.


'That's why he has cost so much money. He is always playing off your shoulder, and that's the one thing we talked about for three days.


'For me it should be bread and butter. We should be picking him up, and while the kid (Belletti) has played a good pass, it's cost us the game.'


Chelsea boss Avram Grant:

'Anelka is a proven striker, and I think my judgment on him has proven to be correct, and not just because of this game.

But the most important thing is we keep the style of the team, even if we've a number of players unavailable.


'The likes of Shaun Wright-Phillips and Steve Sidwell are doing a decent job, and that tells me what I thought, that the players have developed well in the last three months.


'We have developed our football, our spirit, and we keep playing our game, even on a pitch that is not good enough for the Premier League.'

On the Brown/Makalele incident

'I'm not saying he was caught'

'I was protesting because I wanted the referee to stop the play because there might have been a head injury.


'I was concerned because I saw him go down, and he has recently had this operation.'

Well there you have it.

We lost, Chelsea won, now we can concentrate on getting as far away from the bottom three as possible.