Gomez: The game changer

It’s not often you can say Wigan had a comfortable afternoon at the DW, but today we came quite close to just that. You have to go as far back as January for the last time Wigan won by more than a goal, and our opponents that day were… Wolverhampton Wanderers.

Mixed omens, then, and the bookies had the visitors as favourites right up until kick off. Actually, they would have remained so until 12:56, the precise point things turned in Wigan’s favour.

Referee Dean Mason set out his stall to give fouls for pretty much any physical contact, making for a stop-start first half somewhat different from last week’s free-flowing, bustling British football at St Andrew’s. Well, as British as you can get with Wigan’s foreign legion, anyway.

Mason’s pickiness was epitomised by the 11th minute sending-off of Karl Henry, a somewhat unsavoury incident which saw Jordi Gomez somersault through the air after a late challenge by the Wolves midfielder. Thankfully no injuries were suffered, though the whole complexion of the 80 minutes to come was changed in this moment.

It was a huge boost for Wigan, whose confidence was visibly lifted. At this point it was actually ten against ten, as Antolin Alcaraz was off the field having stitches in his forehead, and the home side still looked the more likely to score.

Latics never really cottoned on to the officials’ eagerness to penalise anyone and anything in sight, though Wolves exploited it very well. Their final delivery on the whole wasn’t too great, but at least they created some opportunities, which is more than can be said for many teams that go a man down and look to defend for their lives.

The second half was a different story, however, as Latics completely dominated in terms of possession and shots on target. In fact it’s likely we had more of those than in all our previous Prem matches this season, and that’s no joke.

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James McCarthy grabbed his first league goal for the Latics

With all the postponements and cancellations in the past couple of weeks you’d have been forgiven for thinking the season had ended prematurely, you know, to give people a chance to recover from their New Year hangover. It’s been a full seventeen days since the Latics last played a Premier League match – I wonder if that counts as one of those winter breaks the media have been blathering on about for a while?

If Wolves out-muscled Wigan in their previous encounter, then on balance the (snow?) boot was well and truly on the other foot this afternoon. It didn’t always seem like ending up that way, though: Wanderers looked busy in the first part of the game, and Sylvan Ebanks-Blake went agonisingly close early on when it actually looked easier to score. Latics began to look a bit scrappy at the back and gave the ball away quite a lot, debutant Gary Caldwell having quite a bit of work marshalling his fellow defenders in the second third of the first period.

Wigan slowly edged into the ascendency, however, with Hugo Rodallega coming close on more that one occasion. In fact, it was a mini-miracle the match had remained 0-0 up until the 45 minute mark, with both teams having good opportunities to find the onion bag. But then, with but seconds remaining in the first half and just as fans were setting off for their half-time pies, Latics were handed a chance to get on the scoresheet when a momentary brainfreeze from Richard Stearman saw him tangle clumsily with James McCarthy in the Wigan penalty area.

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Er, well, not particularly.

“Wolves will be tougher“, Bob said after the Villa game. Well, at least he was right about that.

If everything went Wigan’s way on Saturday, then I think it’s safe to say that this certainly was not Latics’ evening. Frustration was the order of the day as none of Martinez’s tactics seemed to work, and a strong early performance by Wolves, in which Andy Keogh managed to steal a goal, was ably defended for the remainder of the game.

A good physical performance by Wolves meant the hosts never really completely dominated, and though the Latics bossed second half possession, few chances came their way. A good performance, in particular, by on-loan defender Michael Mancienne ensured Latics opportunities were hard to come by, helped in part by an average passing game by Titus Bramble, who seemed to think he was playing for Wigan Warriors with numerous successful 40-20 efforts. Not much good in this game, though.

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