Thought today was a real curate's egg of a performance.
Before the game a point seemed a reasonable outcome, at the end I thought we had stolen a point, yet, the nature and timing of the equaliser left me disappointed we hadn't managed to pinch all 3 points. How could we leave Ellington in 10 yards of space from a set piece?
For the first 20 minutes we were all at sea or to give Wigan due credit, they played us off the park. During that first period it seemed only time before Wigan scored and Paul Williams went for an early bath.
Yet we gradually clawed our way back into the game. Hooky and Sarbs swopping wings seemed to help and Wigan stopped running at Williams. Williams mopped up one or two vital rebounds and the other defenders stopped trying to cover for any mistakes he might make and began concentrating on their own game.
Apart from wearing Ed's boots, I thought Cutz had a tremendous game, once again proving what a good shot stopper he is.
Our inability to keep the ball up front showed how much we rely on a fully fit Gifton. Sarbs looked rather lost on the right, but, seemed happier when he moved to the left.
Against a good solid defence I thought Ade looked a real handfull once he got started and deserved his goal.
John Eustace sprayed it about a bit more than normal, great balls for Ade's goal and 1 to Sarbs in the 1st half especially. Maybe overdid it a bit but was probably trying to over compensate for his restricted mobility? He certainly looked to be really struggling in the last 10 minutes.
I don't know where we get the refs from, but Mr Tosser seemed to have come straight from Billy Smart's today.
Ignoring the decisions he did make, the ones he didn't left me stunned. When Clive took out the Wigan player in the 1st half it was an obvious yellow card, yet he appeared to have forgotten who the villain was and with the linesman in Arsene Wenger mode, Clarkey got away with it. ;D
When Sarbs was scythed down from behind, he played a good advantage and again seemed to forget to go back and book the villain. Surely the No 18 deserved some punishment for running 20 yards to push Thomas over?
His masterpiece was, of course his failure to take any action against Jason Roberts for his dive at the Boothen End. That has got to be one of the most outrageous and unconvincing dives ever seen, the perfect example of a yellow card, but nothing!
It hurts to say it but Wigan are the best all round team I have seen this season. Built on 2 excellent central defenders they were obviously full of confidence.
On that basis I think that looking back this was yet another game which showed how far we have progressed this season. In the equivalent games against the likes of Leicester and Wolves last season, we never had a sniff of the points.
