A few snaps from the buildup to the home game with Villa earlier this month. Nothing particularly exciting to note here, except for the fact I used the occasion to experiment with flash settings, which wasn’t entirely (or even moderately) successful – hence the blur in some pics. Blasted poor photography skills/cheapo camera/floodlights. Nevertheless…

Don’t forget to check out the Illarterate Flickr photostream where you can download higher quality versions of a selection of these photos (soon). I intend to catch up on some past photos as well, so that’s well worth checking out, even if I do say so myself.

James Milner snatched the Villa winner

As most anticipated, Aston Villa emerged with the spoils yesterday evening having looked the more likely in a game ultimately decided by a long-range second half James Milner effort.

But it wasn’t as if Latics were played off the park – far from it. They could have even been 1-0 up going into the break had James McCarthy’s fluffed clearance not found the back of his own net. It was a strange incident, as not only was he unchallenged, but he had sufficient time to let it fall to his feet for an easy boot out of play. As it was, McCarthy chose an overhead volley which failed spectacularly, somehow hooking its way past Chris Kirkland.

Wigan would hit back straight away, however, with McCarthy to some extent making up for his discrepancy by winning a free kick in a testing position just outside the Villa penalty area. An excellent delivery nodded in by the advancing Gary Caldwell brought Wigan level within a couple of minutes. Latics were visibly buoyed and exhibited an enhanced brightness, the culmination of which was Hugo Rodallega seeing his shot deflected wide of Friedel’s left hand post.

The sides had earlier traded blows with strikes from Maynor Figueroa and Gabriel Agbonlahor only finding the advertising hoardings behind the goal. The latter would have a frustrating evening characterised by an offside goal with the scores still level, but replays showed the linesman was correct to signal, even if there was less than a foot in it (much closer than, say, Jermain Defoe’s goal a few weeks earlier).

Villa settled down into a rhythm, however, and made Kirkland earn his money on numerous occasions, most notably with the last action of the first half; the keeper advanced off his line to fortuitously clear as Latics’ defence wobbled in the wake of the Villans’ pressure.

Brad Friedel, too, was tested on more than one occasion. Maynor Figueroa forced the Ohioan into a save low and to his right to prove Wigan weren’t just going to let Villa walk all over them like Liverpool had done to Portsmouth the night before.

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What's Bob gonna do? Is the Moses plan out the window?

You might still be getting over Saturday’s dismal day at the Reebok Stadium this afternoon, but it’s time to put that to the back of your mind because there’s the chance for Latics to erase that memory with a good show tomorrow evening. Precedent suggests the ‘one good game, one bad game’ pattern has returned and this one should fall in our favour.

Those who don’t subscribe to kooky numerologist pap (read: everyone but Derren Brown) will be more realistic. Of course, there is the opportunity to complete a rare double over a top-half team, and at the DW Stadium a result is eminently possible – one need simply look to last Monday evening for evidence of that.

Most, however, prefer to take a cautiously pessimistic approach into Tuesday’s showdown, which will no doubt be a far tougher test of the Latics’ mettle. Three points will obviously be the target, but after Saturday’s ‘performance’ not many will hold out hope.

Gary Caldwell in particular will be kicking himself as, in two moments of madness, he saw Wigan’s hopes of grabbing some points fritter away into the warm(ish) late winter air. Charles N’Zogbia might also be reminiscing upon what might have been had he managed to beat Jaaskelainen from close range late in the first half.

The players have go to try and forget those ‘what could have been’ moments, however, and put themselves in a positive frame of mind. Think back just one week to the Monday’s memorable scenes at the DW and almost forget Saturday ever happened. In fact I’m already in the process of wiping my memory of the weekend via (entirely legal) intoxicants. Perhaps.

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Rodders sank a screamer from outside the area

The phrase that generally comes to mind for the opening game of a new campaign is ‘start as you mean to go on’, and by goodness I think we certainly did that this afternoon.

Granted, Villa weren’t at their fluent best, and seemed a long way from the team that put four past Steve Bruce’s men last season. But, as they say, you can only beat what’s put before you, and Wigan did so in fairly emphatic style.

The media gave Wigan absolutely no chance, with all but a couple of so-called ‘pundits’ that like to see themselves as ‘thinking outside the box’ predicting a win, if not a complete walkover, for Aston Villa. On the basis of competitive action, these were justified: on last season’s form, there would only ever be one winner. This isn’t last season, though, and the Villains, for the most part, weren’t quite at the game.

Likewise, John Carew, buoyed by a cracking midweek performance as Norway eased past Scotland, played no part due to an injury in the warm-up. On a different day, and with a bit more luck, he may perhaps have inspired Aston Villa to their expected win over the Latics.

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