Jason Roberts: grabbed what would prove to be the winner

What with the relatively large number of North West teams in the Premier League nowadays, it seems these Lancashire derbies are cropping up more often than ever.

Off the back of recent games against Bolton and Preston (though admittedly the latter was a Carling Cup tie), visiting teams really haven’t had to travel that far for their respective encounters with the Latics at the DW Stadium.

Today’s test of Lancastrian grit and determination came in the form of Blackburn Rovers at Ewood Park. Both Latics and Rovers were in need of some points to ease some pressure exerted by the ominous relegation zone, with the away side holding an ever-so-slight advantage in the Premier League table.

Well, I haven’t much opinion on what happened in the first half, because I wasn’t privileged enough to see or even hear it. Certain Twitterers suggest Charles N’Zogbia ought to have had a goal in the latter stages, and indeed he had the ball in the net only to see his strike disallowed for an infringement.

Wigan began the second half very brightly, carving out three opportunities — of varying difficulty — within minutes of the restart. None challenged the goalkeeper, however, and Blackburn would reply almost immediately in the form of Morten Gamst Pedersen, who forced Ali Al-Habsi into a fantastic reaction save on 49 minutes.

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Ex-Latic Jason Roberts made a cameo appearance from the bench to close out the game for Rovers.

A tough away day for the Latics saw them edged out, in the end, by two goals to one. In all fairness, though this was one of those games that could have been a vital away point, Blackburn simply had the better of a game that seemed to play out in phases.

For all the commentators’ praise of Blackburn’s bustling first half performance, things were pretty even going into the half time break. If it weren’t for a momentary brainfreeze by league débutante Vladimir Stojkovic and a well-placed strike from Pedersen, it could so easily have been 0-0 on 45, but on balance I think 1-1 would have been more of a fair score.

Both sides had decent chances, Rodallega forcing a second-minute save from Robinson and Blackburn hitting the post in the first fifteen minutes. Things continued in much the same vein, with Wigan having the most shots but, crucially, not that many challenging the Blackburn keeper.

They finally did so on 56 minutes, Caldwell bagging his first goal for the Latics with a header slotted past Robinson’s left hand. And they looked to be on the up — a renewed vigour saw them pressure the opposition goal, but not for long. Rovers found their feet again and soon grabbed a deserved goal that put them 2-1 up with less than fifteen minutes to play. Kalinic found some space from a corner and found the back of the net in a rather similar fashion to Caldwell twenty minutes earlier.

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Boxing Day match that finished 1-1. Half time fancy dress pics to come in a separate post, but not yet ‘cos I don’t want to upset the Latics media dudes. :-S

Jason Scotland's barren run continues

It wasn’t a very eventful Premier League Boxing Day in terms of goals and spectacular wins and all that, a point mirrored in the Wigan-Blackburn game yesterday. Well yes, there were two goals, but it wasn’t exactly one for the purists.

I will concede that, at times, the match alluded to end-to-end action, especially in the second half when Wigan started to appear at the match. If I’m honest, the first 45 minutes lacked that spark which only reared its head after the second goal, Wigan’s first.

For this reason, I shall largely gloss over the first half, which saw Blackburn take the lead through Benni McCarthy, a few shots blazed over the crossbar and some bloke in a chicken suit.

Well, what did you expect? It was Boxing Day, and of course the silly suits were out in force for Latics’ annual festive fancy dress competition. King Henry VIII won out, with Bill and Ben the Flowerpot Men getting a runners-up spot and a place in the programme for the Aston Villa game on 9th January.

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