At our primary school, we would all sit down at 2:45 each Friday to answer the teacher’s question, “what have we learned this week?” Naturally, none of us would be remotely engaged in such an activity due to the lure of an impending two days off. Hopefully this new and (like Roberto’s Capital One Cup teams) highly experimental column, which blatantly rips off Mrs Brown’s teaching methods, will be a bit more absorbing. Or at least, mildly interesting.
The South African cricket team are (probably) fans of Wigan. If they weren’t before they certainly will be now, after watching us complete a stylish (cough) victory over Southampton at the St Mary’s Stadium on Saturday. Add them to the list that includes Michael Jackson, Rod Stewart and, erm, Mikhail Gorbachev?
Sky Sports have no faith in Wigan Athletic, or at least our second string. They’ve chosen Tuesday’s Nottingham Forest v Wigan game as a featured League Cup Second Round tie presumably because there is a good chance of an upset. Ah screw ’em, at least we’ll get to see Callum McManaman and co. on the telly before they inevitably head off on loan until the final weeks of the season.
Gary Lineker is a mathematical genius. He correctly cited Wigan’s 100% league record against Southampton on Saturday’s edition of Match of the Day, earning praise from both Alan Hansen and Mark Lawrenson. It’s somewhat surprising that we had never faced the Saints in league football during our journey through the leagues in the last decade or two, but we did play them in the FA Cup in 1986.
The new Latics Official Website is an absolute CPU hog. I discovered this a couple of weeks ago upon its launch, but I wasn’t doing this column then, was I? 😛 Maybe it’s my 5 year old computer, but all programs must be closed down before I even think about loading up the site.
The FA have enforced ‘standardised pitch sizes’. The cynical might cite Arsene Wenger’s constant complaining as the reason behind the new Premier League regulations. One might suggest a vendetta against Stoke City who rely heavily on, shall we say, ‘particular conditions’ to gain a home advantage. What’s that you say? It’s all part of the game, and a good player should be able to adapt to any given situation? Evidently not the case any more. I will henceforth call this the ‘Screw Stoke City law’.
Arsenal did not beat Stoke, so next on Le Professeur’s agenda: length of the grass. This might be one of those little side-stories that colours the pages of many a barrel-scraping tabloid in the coming weeks/months. First up, however, is the imminent closure of this current transfer window. [/Teaser]