Living in the North West of England, something you’re never surprised to see is inclement weather. Wigan artist Lawrence Isherwood painted street scenes to an almost exclusively dull, smoggy backdrop, whilst Winstanley band The Verve seemed to be obsessed with rain – see ‘Grey Skies’, ‘Stormy Clouds’ and ‘Valium Skies‘ for a small taste. One problem – there is precisely one person of northern descent in the Latics squad, and that’s our sub keeper, Mike Pollitt. Well, you could count Caldwell and McArthur in this grouping, but I guess as Scots they’re more used to snow.

Nevertheless, the club’s ‘foreign legion’ of honorary Wiganers ought to be acclimatised to a bit of autumnal weather by now, despite the rather lengthy summer we seem to have experienced this year. The need for points has become pressing of late, so will this change in the weather bring about an upturn in fortunes in the coming months? We can only hope, but for now, minds are fully concentrated on this afternoon’s game; what went right and, more importantly, what went wrong.

If last week’s improved performance was heartening, then this afternoon’s was totally the opposite. Not in terms of commitment, for it would be unfair to ask for anything more – the full-time boos were somewhat unjustified, as paradoxically Wigan’s best football of the season was to be seen in what was ultimately a dismal defeat.

Latics totally dominated the first half in terms of possession and created far more chances than the visitors. Indeed, it was a wonder that Wigan hadn’t scored by the half time break with Moses, Rodallega and Crusat causing Fulham’s backline all sorts of problems. There were long periods in which the Cottagers couldn’t even get a foot on the ball, such was the home side’s grip on proceedings.

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Not exactly Vegas: The 'relatively unglamorous' DW Stadium

Given Wigan’s horrific recent run of losses, a Pools player would mark this game as a sure-fire away win. But, as I have often discovered to my disappointment, games never transpire precisely as you expect them – there are always two or three games that spoil your chances of winning the £10,000 jackpot. From a distinctly Blue point of view, let’s hope Wigan’s contest with the Cottagers turns out to be one of those matches, a game that bucks the trend and puts a long-awaited end to our two-month wait for Premier League points.

All seems fine on the injury front for Latics, as though there are minor doubts over the hamstrung Franco Di Santo and James McCarthy, both should be fit for selection. Hugo Rodallega has also recovered from a small knock sustained during the match with Bolton to take his place in the starting XI once again.

The visitors will be without Phillipe Senderos, Simon Davies and Aaron Hughes, while Bryan Ruiz returns from a knee injury for the Europa League challengers. The ‘relatively unglamorous‘ (Match of the Day’s words, not mine) surroundings of Robin Park await Fulham’s travelling faithful, who make the long trip north to a rainy Wigan hopeful of a first win in three games.

Indeed, the Cottagers are experiencing something of a blip in form having lost their last three games over a period of eight days. Latics fans will know how tough such congested periods can be, even if our most recent ‘nightmare week‘ did not contain the cream of the European footballing crop (no offence to Crystal Palace, of course). Whereas a rested Fulham are expected to turn things around sooner rather than later, Wigan’s bad week snowballed into a grim month and eventually a horrific two months, which is somewhat apt considering Halloween (no puns this year, I promise) is just around the corner. Of course, there’s always the opportunity for a drastic change in fortunes, and a fully-fit (fingers crossed) Latics squad will be hungry for success.

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This was one of those games you wish you’d brought a cap for, especially if you’re towards the back of the East Stand. I did not and spent 3/4 of the game shielding my eyes from the sun, as it was a surprisingly clement afternoon for Wigan in October. It kind of made up for the lack of positive on-pitch action, but not really. Still, here are some photos from the warmup for this South Lancastrian clash.

A bumper selection of pics for you today. High quality images will be made available on the Flickr Illarterate stream under the Creative Commons Attribution license. This means you are free to repost them wherever you wish, provided some credit is applied.

It’s time to catch up on some JWAW photography from recent home games. First up, we have snaps of the warmup from Wigan’s victory over QPR just under two months ago, which is incidentally the last time they did anything but lose. Has it really been that long since our last point?

A selection of the best pics from this game –as well as the pre-season contest with Villarreal– are in the process of being uploaded to the Illarterate Flickr stream. As ever, they’re much higher quality than the 100kb jpegs here, and, like all JWAW photos, are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution so feel free to use them for your own blogs, forums and photomontages if you wish.