Michael Brown returned to haunt his old club

A bad, nay, disastrous afternoon for the Latics at Fratton Park as our up and down season continues to both surprise and frustrate. If the Hull performance was bad, then today’s game was woeful, a million miles away from the team that beat Chelsea and even Burnley earlier this season.

The loss of Maynor Figueroa for the next couple of months is definitely a huge blow, and will no doubt lead to a rethink for next weekend’s fixture against Fulham.

For today’s game, an obvious replacement may have been Erik Edman, but Martinez instead chose to bring Sinclair into the left midfield position. Wigan’s makeshift left back, Charles N’Zogbia, did all he could under the circumstances, but asking a naturally forward-minded midfielder to play full back was, in truth, always doomed to failure.

It wasn’t just N’Zogbia’s fault, however. All of the Latics back line failed to deal with Portsmouth’s attacks, and indeed the whole squad had a day to forget. That’s not to take anything away from Portsmouth, who seemed as though they just wanted the game more, and finished the afternoon well deserving of their victory.

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