Relaying of the much-maligned DW Stadium surface gets underway today and should be ready for next Monday’s visit of Liverpool. And not before time, you might say.

In seasons past, we’ve seen the pitch suffer badly around this time of year. You can point to any number of factors: poor weather, undersoil heating malfunction, moles etc. I will also concede that it doesn’t help that we have to groundshare with a rugby league team, but that isn’t the root of the problem.

And to be honest, I don’t think I could tell you for sure exactly what is causing the pitch to break up year upon year. After all, there are plenty of other northern clubs — Burnley, Stoke and Preston to name but a few — who’ve managed to keep their pitches in decent condition despite inclement weather, and they’re run on similar budgets to the Latics.

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Paul Scharner had a terrible first half

An improved second half performance couldn’t quite grab a vital point for Wigan at St. Andrews. In fact, things could have been even better considering Birmingham’s average second half, which saw Chris Kirkland tested only once, but Latics once again struggled to create opportunities.

A draw would have been very handy, but as it stands Wigan lie just a single point above the relegation zone with a tough test to come against Liverpool next Monday. The sheer frustration of the Tottenham and Bolton contests spilled over into another game without a goal and, more worryingly, little to no efforts on target.

As the commentators were quick to point out, when you’re at the bottom things seem ten times harder, and though Wigan had the majority of the 50/50 decisions in the second period, they could not capitalise on their good fortune. Again.

Wigan’s best chance came in the latter part of the game as Hugo Rodallega forced Joe Hart to advance from his line and make a solid save. It was a nice move that pounced on a Birmingham defensive mistake as McCarthy played in Hugo who got a decent effort in, but the Birmingham keeper was equal to it.

There was another good chance for either Gomez or Rodallega, who somehow managed to get in the way of each other, but that was it in terms of opportunities. It seems they’ve dried up in recent times, at the exact point we don’t want them to – not even the best efforts of the two young men Moses and McCarthy could create anything other than the odd tame effort rolling out for a goal kick. A pity, because as the game wore on you increasingly thought Birmingham were there for the taking: any dominance they’d built up in the first 45 just fizzled out as Bramble and Caldwell extinguished all potential attacks from City’s impotent front line.

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You know, despite the inclement weather, poor pitch, the fact everyone decided to watch the game on television and of course the 3-0 loss, Sunday wasn’t such a bad day. There wasn’t quite the fervour of Wednesday, but by the same token the weight of expectation wasn’t quite as heavy, at least in my eyes. Didn’t stop people booing our lads off the pitch again though.

The boo boys can console themselves in the fact that, thanks to other results falling our favour, things aren’t much different than they were going into the weekend, which gives us a bit more time out of the relegation zone. Well, hopefully we won’t fall into it at all, but at least there’s a bit of breathing space there.

I swear, Alex, I have no idea where your biscuits have disappeared to...

Is Roberto Martinez in training to be the next Alex Ferguson or what?

Seasoned football watchers will be well versed in the big Scot’s blame-shifting tactics; the referee wasn’t fit enough to keep up; the fourth official didn’t add enough/added too much stoppage time; the grass was too long; somebody stole our half time Jaffa Cakes.

The problem is, Manchester United are one of the best sides in the country and Fergie can get away with it because he’s just so awesome. When Roberto Martinez attempts it, it looks, well, foolish. Unfortunately it smacks of desperation, something we really do not need to be making obvious to our fellow relegation battlers who will no doubt see this as weakness.

Mind you, it’s not as if Bob could focus on his team’s performance which, for the most part, wasn’t quite there. Much like against Bolton and Notts County (to name but a couple, actually), Latics had their best spell of pressure for about 25-30 minutes in the second half, and this would have been fine if it resulted in a goal. Problem is, it didn’t.

The first half, by contrast, was more circumspect. Wigan more than competed, but then we did at White Hart Lane in November and we all know what happened after that. Sorry for bringing that up yet again, because even though I didn’t/haven’t seen the game on Sky Sports yet I’m guessing Andy Gray et al did that enough yesterday afternoon – and all week, come to think of it.

Spurs probably had the better of the early stages with Wigan just coming into things in the latter part of the first period. Rodallega drew a fine save from Gomes and N’Zogbia sent a shot just over the Tottenham bar, which I suppose was a creditable effort. No goal, though, and Tottenham had one of their own on the 30-minute mark when Jermain Defoe broke free of the Latics’ offside trap to tap in at the back post. To be fair to the Wigan defence, they kept their line well and on this occasion just couldn’t keep up with Defoe’s pace.

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