Peter Crouch looked slightly off-colour, and was replaced by Pavlyuchenko at half time

Just when we really needed it, how’s about that for a Latics ‘dream week’? I don’t recall back-to-back wins under Martinez since the last time Halley’s Comet was visible from Earth to the naked eye.

Actually, it was January, but it seems like far, far longer – after all, we’ve conceded a whole raft of goals and more than a modicum of frustration since.

By contrast, it seems like only yesterday that Latics were taking an absolute spanking at the hands of today’s opponents.

You’ve got the mainstream media to thank for that, because if it were up to me I’d have subjected anyone who ever even so much as mentioned WhiteHartLaneGate to the pleasure of having a large horse leave a nice pressie on their front lawn. I’m not talking about an XBOX with FIFA 10 here, and you know it (though certain PES fans may strongly disagree).

Oh how the boot was on the other foot this afternoon. Tottenham showed none of the attacking threat of that fateful evening in November, the likes of Lennon and Defoe a mere shadow of their former selves. Add to the mix an on-song goalkeeper full of confidence off the back of a clean sheet in a three-nil victory on Tuesday (and yet to concede a competitive goal this season), some resolute Latics defence and you have one large upset with which the press can have a field day. At least until Man United pasted West Ham later in the afternoon.

Ali Al-Habsi was certainly the stand out performer of the afternoon, pulling off a number of highly important saves to keep Latics’ clean sheet intact for the duration of the game. It was somewhat lucky considering Younes Kaboul”s wonderful 86th minute opportunity, perhaps the only occasion when the Omani looked more than a little suspect as he rushed off his line.

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Victor Moses troubled the scorers with an 86th minute strike

Well, would you believe it? Latics’ first match in a new, non-orange away kit has led to our first competitive away win under Martinez whilst wearing anything other than blue and white. There can only be one explanation, and that’s the old ‘Tangerine Dream’, henceforth termed the Oranjeboom Nightmare, was jinxed. A rotten satsuma, if you will.

Yep, it can’t be that League One Hartlepool United just couldn’t live up to the ‘quality’ of a so-called Premier League team because Wigan couldn’t even score against, let alone beat, Blackpool. A quick glance at last night’s other results show that our conquerors of two weeks ago actually lost to MK Dons. I guess this logic places the Seasiders in League One and Latics in the Conference or something, and I wonder where the ‘orange kit’ theory comes into that?

Thank goodness football has little to do with logic, otherwise we’d have people like Paul Merson moonlighting as pundits. Oh, wait… Well, I suppose that’s one reason to be pleased Sky Sports News has disappeared from free-to-air television.

Now, dare I say it? Has Martinez’ side finally ‘clicked’? There’s no doubt last night’s victory is a nice little confidence booster, but I think it’s impossible to tell. Latics were never in total control until quite late in the game, despite the one goal lead they held for 70-odd minutes, and that’s partially down to the old cup tie mentality of ‘we don’t wanna lose against a team two divisions below us’. I think it was Graham Lovett on WISH FM that first pointed that out, actually.

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John Terry had a much easier time at the DW this year

And so it came to pass that the multi-millionaires walked all over the Premier League wannabes once again.

Some may argue the sheer weight of such a scoreline was somewhat unjustified considering Latics’ first half performance, and I would tend to agree with them, but then I am a Wigan supporter. As such, I have been subjected to torture much worse than this in the past twelve months to the extent I’ve become numb to it all.

On the positive side, for thirty minutes Latics actually competed and, were it not for a lack of creativity and cutting edge in the final third, could have emerged with at least a goal or two for their troubles.

It wouldn’t have been enough, though, because it seemed the Champions could walk all over Little Wigan any time they wanted. Had this Chelsea side hit their straps earlier in the piece, things can be much worse. I reckon we ought to be grateful for that, because we were ultimately up against a far better team that’s been moulded over the course of many years of careful planning and flamboyant investment.

The likes of Malouda, Anelka and Drogba –the latter of whom somehow managed not to get on the scoresheet– were a class apart, recovering from a slowish start (by their standards, anyway) to lay the smackdown on our sorry bee-hinds. Yossi Benayoun capped it all with a late finish to continue the ‘always scores against Wigan’ theme we’ve already got going on this campaign.

So we were out of our league yesterday, but that doesn’t necessarily mean we don’t deserve our place in the Premier League, no matter how many ‘pundits’ brand us a disgrace. Sure, it’s looking like another season of terrible batterings and one of the worst goal differences in the league. The simple fact of the matter is that a seventeenth place finish will keep Wigan in the Prem for another year, and that’s the way it’s been for as long as I can remember.

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Carlo Ancelotti: not exactly quaking in his boots

Take one team that’s struggling to find their feet after a demoralising defeat at the hands of a newly-promoted side (who many are tipping to finish rock bottom of the league, no less) and pit them against the champions on the crest of a wave following a six-goal tonking of West Brom.

You would think that’s a recipe for disaster, especially considering the supposed backroom problems simmering at the DW Stadium, and sure enough, everyone’s predicting an absolute hammering for poor old Roberto.

I would say, however, that it’s a bit too dangerous to make such predictions at this stage, no matter how nailed-on they may seem. Don’t get me wrong, I’m fully expecting an absolutely rotten afternoon, one of those one-sided encounters that sickens you to the pit of your stomach. But while there’s life, there’s always hope, and by golly that really does seem to be all we have to cling to at the moment.

It may seem the side we are set to field this evening is far worse than the guys that managed to pull one out of the bag in the corresponding fixture last season, and that’s most likely a justified assumption. We can, however, console ourselves in the fact that, after last week, it can only get better… can’t it?

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