What's Bob gonna do? Is the Moses plan out the window?

You might still be getting over Saturday’s dismal day at the Reebok Stadium this afternoon, but it’s time to put that to the back of your mind because there’s the chance for Latics to erase that memory with a good show tomorrow evening. Precedent suggests the ‘one good game, one bad game’ pattern has returned and this one should fall in our favour.

Those who don’t subscribe to kooky numerologist pap (read: everyone but Derren Brown) will be more realistic. Of course, there is the opportunity to complete a rare double over a top-half team, and at the DW Stadium a result is eminently possible – one need simply look to last Monday evening for evidence of that.

Most, however, prefer to take a cautiously pessimistic approach into Tuesday’s showdown, which will no doubt be a far tougher test of the Latics’ mettle. Three points will obviously be the target, but after Saturday’s ‘performance’ not many will hold out hope.

Gary Caldwell in particular will be kicking himself as, in two moments of madness, he saw Wigan’s hopes of grabbing some points fritter away into the warm(ish) late winter air. Charles N’Zogbia might also be reminiscing upon what might have been had he managed to beat Jaaskelainen from close range late in the first half.

The players have go to try and forget those ‘what could have been’ moments, however, and put themselves in a positive frame of mind. Think back just one week to the Monday’s memorable scenes at the DW and almost forget Saturday ever happened. In fact I’m already in the process of wiping my memory of the weekend via (entirely legal) intoxicants. Perhaps.

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Talk about destroying your own sandcastle...

I just don’t get it. I mean, every other time we’ve managed to grab a win this season we have followed it up with a terrible result, so I suppose I shouldn’t really have expected anything else from this game. But man, talk about building ourselves up then tumbling down again in equally spectacular fashion.

In some ways, all the luck Wigan might have had in the Liverpool game was quickly righted in a half of football characterised by the lack of that special something that made Monday evening so wonderful.

Though Latics looked strong in the first twenty minutes and the more likely to score, the irony is they actually couldn’t avoid conceding a goal in this period and only managed one effort on target themselves.

Wigan’s best chance –well, when they were still in the game, anyway– came late in the first half when Jussi Jääskeläinen saved at point blank range from Charles N’Zogbia. Had that effort gone in, the game’s complexion would have completely changed and who knows, maybe the result might have been a bit more positive for the Latics.

Likewise, had Hugo Rodallega received a penalty after being upended in the Bolton area just minutes into the game, our confidence would have been just a notch higher, perhaps elevating our performance and taking us on to greater things, but we shall never know.

Maybe Wigan burned themselves out in the opening stages, so when the second goal came it completely knocked the stuffing out of any shape or desire they once had. From then on, things smacked of White Hart Lane as Bolton sealed the deal with a couple more. Yeah, we’ll gloss over that…

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Photos from the build-up to this Premier League match. The floodlights at the DW mean night matches aren’t exactly great for getting decent photos, but the blur/glare wasn’t too bad on Monday evening.

Parting of the Red Sea: glum faces all round for the 'Pool

Let’s get this out of the way first of all – Liverpool were, by their standards, rubbish. Their passing was sloppy — amongst the worst I’ve seen at the DW this season, in fact — their finishing and will to win largely lacking.

That’s not to say the Reds didn’t have their fair share of chances last night. The only problem was they couldn’t hit the target, and may I say (in a rather biased fashion) that it was nice to see someone other than Wigan struggle to do so at the DW Stadium. Perhaps the biggest culprit of all was Fernando Torres, who, in his five opportunities, never even managed to challenge Chris Kirkland. Two of them, on another day, he may well have slotted away to help Liverpool bury little Wigan like they ought to have.

I say ‘ought to have’ in a partly ironic fashion, as on balance, you’d have never known which team were battling for a top four place and which were fighting against relegation. In truth, Latics were deserved winners and the more likely to score all night, even if Liverpool did have some similarly decent opportunities.

Right, that’s out of my system now. This particular match report will differ from 90% of those that adorn the front pages of tabloids and fansites nationwide in that it will actually focus on the Wigan perspective, and how wonderful it is to grab a crucial, crucial, crucial three points. In fact it was so important I decided to repeat the word ‘crucial’ a couple of times there.

As I sit here, the ‘analysts’ on TalkSport are picking apart the substandard Liverpool performance, but I shall completely ignore that, for it smacks of paint-by-numbers journalism ever so slightly. Also this is a Wigan blog, so I dunno what else you might have expected from a bunch of biased northerners.

Enough of the big boy butt kissing, already!

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