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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If you cast your mind back to November, you may remember a very special match preview for what proved to be a highly notable game in this season’s Premier League. Those who haven’t completely blanked the weekend from their minds (and I’m very sorry for once again evoking repressed memories here) will remember that Dan Fitch of tottenhamblog.com very kindly provided his thoughts in the build up to our previous encounter with Spurs.

Well, the JWAW readership enjoyed that feature so much they asked, nay, demanded Dan return to comment on the rematch at the Dee Dubya. Actually, it was Mr. Fitch himself who posited the idea of a similar interview for this weekend’s encounter – the vast majority of Wigan fans have spent the last three months pretending Tottenham don’t exist, and who could blame them?

Nevertheless, I think we’ve sufficiently recovered from the events of that fateful afternoon at least to the extent we can forgive and forget, chalk it up as a freak result and apply any other coping mechanism your psychiatrist could care to mention.

I think we’re gonna have to sooner or later, as there’s no escaping the fact a team that put nine past our defensive line in their last encounter with us is visiting the borough this Sunday afternoon. And we’re going to have to play them again.

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JWAW: Dan Fitch, editor of tottenhamblog.com, the last time I spoke to you was before what has since been termed ‘the incident which must never be mentioned again under penalty of stoning’. However, much as it pains me, I think we’d better address the issue of that game sooner rather than later because I feel it’s looming over us like a four match ban for punching someone when the ref isn’t looking.

Dan: Yes, we somehow beat you 9-1, which I can only apologise for. As you will have noticed from our recent results, it was completely out of character for us.

I’ve still no idea how it happened really, as at half time I was thinking that 2-0 would be a good result. It was just one of those days when every shot seemed to go in.

I think that you were a victim of playing far too openly against us. Teams like Wolves and Hull have got results at White Hart Lane, by merit of just putting everyone behind the ball, whilst Wigan tried to play football. It’s to your credit, but I imagine is reasonably annoying from your perspective.

Do you think a win of such magnitude filled Spurs with a renewed/continued flair and self-assurance, or did it have the inverse effect and create a sense of overconfidence that ultimately led to one or two disappointing performances?

It certainly didn’t seem to help us, as afterwards we went on a four game run without a win, culminating in a home defeat to Wolves.

This side, like many Spurs teams before it, doesn’t have much bottle and the weight of expectation after such a big win, may have counted against us.

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Got any Scotch?

Remember on the old Saturday afternoon videprinter, whenever anyone scored more than six goals they used to spell it out in letters, as if to rub it in the faces of the losing team? Yeah, well, I’m glad they don’t uphold that custom anymore. Incidentally, I’ve done it in the title of this post, so if you’re a Wigan fan, don’t read it.

We’ve seen it so many times this season I really need not cite specific incidents. When Wigan go 2-0 down, it really could be any number against: we become so dejected and humiliated we stop caring and might as well be stood at the bar or playing Nintendo or something. Maybe we ought to have abandoned this afternoon as a bad project and conceded the game midway through the second half, because it really did become unnecessary torture.

The finger of blame naturally points at the defenders in situations such as this, and indeed Edman, Bramble and Boyce are mostly at fault for… well, at least seven goals. But we shall not dwell on that one too much, because for the really bad game the back four had it was more of a case of not being good enough. We really struggled to keep up with Lennon and Defoe for all ninety minutes, and were quite flattered by the half-time scoreline.

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