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It’s always a killer when you concede in the last minute, and though we conceded three less today, this defeat hurt a lot more than the Manchester United result.
Wigan were fortunate enough to hold out Everton for the first forty-five minutes, managing only one or two forays into the opposition half every now and then. Latics were certainly the happier side going into the half time interval, and could consider themselves lucky not to be a goal down or even have a man sent off.
The second half began much the same as the first had finished as Everton laid seige to the Latics goalmouth, but Wigan repelled all attacks and started to come into their own, Scharner finding the back of the net with his team’s first shot on target. This was immediately followed by a Jordi Gomez shot hitting the outside half of Tim Howard’s post.
Latics’ lead lasted all of five minutes, however, as on 62 Everton were back on level terms thanks to a Saha header. From thereon in it was a case of trying to hit Everton on the counterattack, and Latics could so easily have scored on a couple of occasions, but it was Everton that looked more like scoring as time ticked by.
The officials managed to find four minutes of stoppage time from somewhere, though, and Latics’ fortunes changed quickly as Jo was brought down by Emmerson Boyce inside the penalty area in the third minute of time added on. Leighton Baines calmly slotted the resulting penalty past Mike Pollitt and the game was snatched.
A killer blow indeed, but more promising signs that this Latics side can grit it out and play physically when they have to. A little bit tough on Latics, but there’s plenty of the season to make up for it yet. A bit of a break now for internationals, but roll on West Ham in two weeks, when hopefully we can beat that home hoodoo.
Image licensed under Creative Commons by Nicksarebi at Flickr.
