Victor Moses: Out of luck

Ever wondered exactly why the Carling Cup exists? Neither have I, really, but it’s interesting to learn England’s League Cup was created as a midweek competition for teams with floodlit grounds. It may seem a gimmicky premise, but these days there’s a Europa League spot up for grabs so you can’t really label it a Mickey Mouse Cup, as it was known for so many years.

A quick look at Latics’ previous games in this competition revealed a distinct pattern: three home games against teams in lower leagues, three wins. Only the Hartlepool tie could be termed comfortable, however, so luck of the draw was certainly on our side. This changed in a moment when we got Arsenal in the Quarters, but hey, at least we were pretty much guaranteed to be put out by a Premier League team now, sparing us the shame of a giant killing. If such a thing could ever exist in the Carling, for which only the top four divisions are eligible.

So how would Martinez treat this trip to London? With an important Premier League game against Stoke imminent, would he succumb to temptation and rest his star men, or play his full strength team and give it a right good go? Past experience would have suggested the former, and I wasn’t at all surprised Bob decided on exactly that. A loss on Saturday, as I alluded to the other day, would stick us right in the swamp again.

Antolin Alcaraz, returning from a one-game ban, was paired with Steve Caldwell at the back, whilst Watson, McArthur and Thomas were all handed starts. Mauro Boselli, who scored in his last Carling Cup outing against Swansea, was preferred to Franco Di Santo up front, which would seem to suggest the Ten Million Dollar Man is below his fellow countryman in the pecking order, at least for the moment. Victor Moses was also given a chance after a long string of substitute appearances, and not before time I’d say. Al Habsi, Gohouri, Figueroa and Stam completed a vastly rejigged Latics line-up.

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Avram Grant lives to fight another day

The media is a strange beast. In the week following our bruising at Old Trafford, I note that many critics labelled Latics unlucky to lose 2–0, which completely surprised me. Little Wigan actually garnering what might be termed ‘praise’, let alone mainstream coverage? Never!

What’s more, we’ve turned out far better performances this year and only managed draws or dismal losses. Where were the papers to bemoan our fortunes then? Oh, that’s right, digging dirt on Wayne Rooney and creaming over Chelski and Man City as usual. But that’s okay. Here in this small part of North West England, we know our place in the hierarchy.

I’d love for us to keep plodding away, do our time in the Prem in the hope of eventually tasting a modicum of success akin to our début season in England’s top flight on our way to a Europa Cup campaign. Maybe then attitudes will change, but in the meantime we can continue enjoying a good old moan –the Latics fan’s single greatest pleasure– about anything and everything you could care to mention. All in good fun, you understand.

Pre-game, it’s no surprise all eyes and ears were on today’s opponents, the ailing Hammers. Rock bottom of the table and five points adrift of the safety zone, the West Ham marketing people dubbed today ‘Save Our Season’ day, and with good reason. Read between the lines and you may interpret this as ‘Save Our Manager‘, but that doesn’t sound quite as good, somehow. To many, this was Judgement Day in more ways than one, with Avram Grant perched precariously on an extremely thin ledge above the abyss that is temporary unemployment.

Yeah, should Avram be ordered back to the Job Centre, he would almost certainly crop up later in the year at Notts Forest or somewhere. Big deal. West Ham United is far bigger than any manager (except maybe Barry Fry) and a loss today would be a great blow to their confidence — not fatal by any means, but demoralising nonetheless.

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Wayne Rooney: Back in action

If we’re being totally honest, this was pretty much always going to be a blank weekend for Latics, with next week’s trip to West Ham seeing the resumption of our season proper.

Except perhaps not. Perhaps Wigan could do the unthinkable and somehow come away from Old Trafford with something more than a Wayne Rooney gingerbread man (which was quite nice, by the way, and I don’t even like Mancunian shortbread). Perhaps pigs might be spotted boarding Concorde at Liverpool John Lennon airport. Maybe Lionel Messi would be seen at the DW Stadium negotiating a cut price contract involving a year’s supply of free Uncle Joe’s Mint Balls.

If we’re being serious (wot that?), today was as good a time as any for Latics to grind out their first point(s) at the Theatre of Broken Dreams, not least because normally Man United are absolutely powerhousing their way through all in their path. This hasn’t been the case in the last couple of months, even if losses at Old Trafford are still as rare as an Olivier Kapo shot on target as they’ve ever been.

Nevertheless, with Wigan on good form of late, there was always hope that the planets might align and Latics would scrape a flukey draw. For the first 30 minutes of the game, however, this was looking far from feasible, with United bossing possession and looking the more likely to score. As the end of the half drew near, though, Wigan started to get some passes going and created a few decent chances. You might even say we should have scored, and indeed a goal might have been more than useful in our seemingly futile quest to score an away win at Manchester United (dude).

In a similar vein to recent games, Latics began to find their feet towards the end of the first period, and somehow managed to avoid conceding to boot. Just when you felt things were going to plan, United grabbed one on the nick of half time, and it could well have been prevented. If Ali Al-Habsi had committed to claiming the ball, he probably would have been able to stop Evra’s header finding the back of the net. As it was, he was left in Half and Halfsville as lost as Steve Caldwell navigating Wigan town centre’s one way system.

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Man of the Match Moses secured the vital points for Latics

Latics managed to haul themselves out of the relegation zone with a much needed win at the DW Stadium.

For all our promising attacking play of late, goals seem to have been rather thin on the ground, especially in relation to some of our closest Premier League rivals. Still, one goal is often enough to win you a football match, and that proved to be the case this afternoon.

Nil apiece was a fair reflection of the first 45 minutes, with neither side imposing themselves enough to physically force the ball into the net. Latics bossed the opening stages, picking up where they left off on Wednesday night. They created no clear cut opportunities to speak of, however, despite the home’s side smooth passing and enterprising play in the first 15.

West Brom looked to hit Latics with the old sucker punch just as many teams have been doing of late. After some dodgy passing, which presented Wigan with the ball more often than the visitors would have liked, things settled down and they looked pretty good on the break, if a little short of men up front.

It was Albion who arguably had the best of the chances, though like their hosts they could not force the goalkeeper into any save of note. Midfielder James Morrison come close towards the end of the half, and Paul Scharner could not direct a header towards the Latics goal, but West Brom were just about on top going into the interval.

More of the same was to be seen in the second period up until the the hour mark, when both sides got their first real attempts on target within half a minute of each other as the game threatened to spark into life.

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