Wigan Athletic » Team News

Steve Bruce Manager of the Month, surely?

Shaun — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 17:43:03 +0000

Wow! What a season this is turning into. Those who laughed at my pre-season prediction of Wigan in Europe should take a long hard look at themselves. Anyway, it has been an excellent month for the Latics and if Steve Bruce isn’t given manager of the month then its a travesty. Wigan are now top of the form guide in the premier league. www.premierleague.com

Last friday the defeat to Spurs was quite bad but we will get the better of them this coming Sunday at 1.30pm.

Looking ahead to this month and it is unclear who Wigan will bring in. Zaki and Heskey should stay where they are but players like Kapo need replacing ASAP. Send him back to France, his performances have been dire. Siberski has left for Norwich already so good luck to him.

I hope you have had a merry christmas and a great new year- and that no one has attempted to throttle any DJs when they won’t play a Phil Collin’s record for you. (unlike Gerrard).

Keep checking back this month as i have some exciting plans for this blog.

The end of the line for Ince?

Shaun — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 19:59:27 +0000

At exactly 3.15pm on Saturday, Paul Ince must have felt like he was friendless and out in the cold. His Blackburn team were being ripped apart by a Wigan side who were playing free-flowing football, for arguably the first time at home this season.

It really wasn’t nice to see thousands of Blackburn fans throw their arms towards Ince with chants of ‘you’re getting sacked in the morning’. Fair enough, these fans had paid £30 to watch what was a shower of shite in the first half, but it is never nice to see someone lose their job, unless their name is Piers Morgan.

Wigan are now up to 9th in the league and with a bit of a break in the league, due to Manchester United embarking on their money spinning trip to Japan. Their next game is at home to Newcastle on Boxing Day. Win that and they really are on one hell of a roll.

One last point. There were many Blackburn fans in santa costumes at the match on Saturday, but they left early in the second half, when it was rumoured that Ince had got the sack.

Premier League Predictions update!

Shaun — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 16:49:36 +0000

Hi there, you may remember that i predicted what the premier league table would look like by the end of the season, in an earlier blog. So, how about we take a look at what i said would happen, as we creep near the halfway point of the season.

Here is the table at this moment.
P W D L F A W D L F A GD PTS
1 Liverpool
2 Chelsea
3 Man Utd
4 Arsenal

——————————————————————————–

5 Aston Villa

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6 Hull
7 Portsmouth
8 Everton
9 Fulham
10 Bolton
11 Wigan
12 Middlesbrough
13 Stoke
14 Man City
15 Tottenham
16 West Ham
17 Newcastle
——————————————————————————–

18 Sunderland
19 Blackburn
20 West Brom

And here is my final table and what i said would happen
20th Hull. They can’t be as bad as Derby but surely its a no-hoper.
19th West Brom. Why let Kevin Phillips leave? A proven, abliet old, goalscorer who knew how to score at the highest level. He’ll be back soon enough with Birmingham.
18th Blackburn. This is what happens when you leave a child in charge of adults.
17th Stoke. I think they will survive. Why try to unlock defences with intricate, tidy passes when you can blast through with the old big ‘oof.
16th West Ham. Nothing in their team to suggest improvement.
15th Bolton. Solid, strong and survival.
14th Fulham. With the squeaky-voiced, tongue-sticker-outer, part-time diver Andy Johnson on board they should be safe.
13th Everton. This is a club who have hardly got any players. I went along to their pre-season game against PSV yesterday and there where fans in the stand shouting “we’re skint and we know we are!” during the game. I liked the way that when police tried to calm the fans down, they were subjected to chants of “shit job no mates!”
12th Sunderland. With the Irish nutter in charge, the players will be too scared to play badly. Otherwise they become the victim of knee ligament ripping tackles in training by Mr Keane himself.
11th Newcastle. Owen will score a few, get injured, come back 10 games later and will remain the teams’ top scorer.
10th Middlesbrough. Alves will score, Boro will roar.
9th Portsmouth. UEFA Cup will leave the league campaign on the back-burner.
8th Manchester City. Likewise.
7th Wigan. The team is capable of this, thanks to the addition of brilliance like Amir Zaki. He will set the league alight, mark my words.
6th Aston Villa. Barry wants to go, Boumas crippled already, Young will shine and Villa will fly in all competitions.
5th Arsenal. Young kids will never win anything. How many times has that been said before….
4th Tottenham. Why not? The signings have been made, the manager looks decent and the experience is there amongst the team.
3rd Manchester United. An off season perhaps? Ronaldos been persuaded to stay but surely he can’t have another majestic season. Fergie will walk at the end.
2nd Chelsea. Big Phil should punch Fat Frank and teach the greedy bastard a lesson. Ballack will shine.
1st Liverpool. Torres and Keane will go together like Lampard and all you can eat buffets. Backed up by Gerrard, Kuyt and Voronin- who will have a much better season- i’m tipping them for champions

Well, i’m not one to blow my own trumpet (ba ba baaaaaa), but West Brom and Blackburn are in the bottom 3, like i said. Liverpool are top with Chelsea 2nd and Man U 3rd, like i said. West Ham are 16th, like i said, and the rest of the teams bar Hull and Tottenham are there and there abouts.

Wigan are also going for Europe, and with my exact words ‘Amir Zaki will set the league alight’.

I am one hell of a predictor.

Money and Economic misery with Wayne Rooney

Shaun — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 18:58:35 +0000

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

We are in the midst of a tough time for many people, financially. Honda F1 has announced it is pulling out, while many car manufacturers in the US (General Motors) and in the UK (Vauxhall, Honda, Jaguar) are struggling to sell cars and are shutting down early for Christmas.

Out on the high streets, malls, shopping centres, retailers are reporting profits which are down on last year. There is meant to be this big Christmas boom when everyone goes on a spending spree, but it hasn’t materialised. People are being hit in the pocket and are reluctant to spend.

Which is why less and less tickets are being sold at football matches. £400 season ticket? Fuck off, where is that money going to come from, from me and you? Most people have enough money problems to consider buying tickets to watch overpaid footballers wander the pitch- or in Ronaldo’s case, leave it.

Which nicely brings me onto Manchester United and Wayne Rooney. Now, old Shrek-head has been a bit angry recently after his income was revealed to the public. According to the courts, Rooney earns £90,000 a week and various other agreements with EA Sports and Coca Cola, as well as a £1,000,000 deal with Nike help tide him over. Well Wayne, as you sit in your luxury mansion, with your Bentley parked out front, remember those poor men and women slaving away to get the pennies and dollars together this christmas when you spit and swear at a referee just because he wouldn’t give you a free-kick.

Thanks for that Wayne.

Now fuck off.

Wigan 2-1 West Brom

Shaun — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 17:17:55 +0000

Hi, hope you and your team had a good weekend.

This Saturday, West Brom came to town and bought the fog with them. It was genuinely the worst fog i had seen in my life. Visibility was poor but in the stadium, you could make out the stand opposite. Just.

Having the flu like i did, and going to a match played in something like -2 degrees, isn’t a bright idea. When Wigan were trailing 1-0 after the hourmark, i considered throwing myself off the stand roof, i was that cold. I probably wouldn’t have felt a thing i was that numb!

The first half was pretty entertaining, considering the rubbish that Wigan fans have had to endure at home this season, but it remained 0-0 at the break. Camera somehow missed from 6 yards and West Brom had numerous chances on the break but couldn’t find that killer pass.

The second half was much better- and colder. Miller capitalised on a mistake by Titus Bramble (never!) and slid the ball past Kirkland in the Wigan goal. Cue some happy dancing in the stand by the 3,000 West Brom fans. It could well have been more, if the blockade that was Kirkland had not been there. I’ll be doing a blog this winter on why he should be England no.1.

After pressure from West Brom came to nothing, a mix up at the other end between Robinson and Carson (convieniently the names of two crap keepers) resulted in Camera acrobaticly spooning the ball into the net. Jubilation followed, and there was more to come as Boyce headed in a late winner in the 87th minute. Get in there lad! By now, frostbite had nearly killed me and somehow i managed to defrost over the weekend.

So there you have it, a victory in the freezing cold which jumped Wigan up the table to 9th. They lie 11th with a trip to Arsenal at the weekend their next game. But, hey, anythings possible. Gallas might even score for us.

Boing, Boing Baggies come to town

Shaun — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 18:00:11 +0000

Saturday at 3.pm sees the visit of West Brom to the JJB Stadium. Observers of the league table may notice that ‘the Baggies’ as they are known, are bottom with just 11 points. However, that does not mean they are useless. No one has been cast adrift a la Derby County last season, and Wigan, despite being only 5 points clear of 20th place, are only 3 adrift of 7th placed Everton! I boldly predicted a Wigan side in Europe before the start of the season and i stand by that. I don’t think a premiership table has been so close before.
Wigan will start Henri Camara up front, who scored the only goal in a 1-0 victory over Everton on Monday. West Brom try and play a nice style of football but really they look the most likely of anyone to go down this season.

Looks like ‘the Baggies’ will need to do a lot of shopping come January.

I’ll get my coat…

Why Rugby League is better than Football

Shaun — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 16:56:17 +0000

Yesterday evening at around 7PM, i was stood on the terraces at Knowsley Road, home to ST Helens rugby league football club. Now, its not your average stadium, Knowsley Road. It doesn’t have the plastic, shiny, sparkling look of your Old Traffords or your Wembleys. Nope, its over 100 years old and has leaky roofs, 500 seats and rotting foundations. But it has something that Wembley or any other flashy new 80,000 seater will never have. Charm and charisma. It is unique and so are the fans. Most of you reading this will not know what Rugby League is all about, but it puts football to shame in many areas.
The game was St Helens v Wigan and on a cold Friday evening with the rain hammering down onto the turf, the place was electric. Chants from both sides, pitch confrontations and a whole lot of bloody good fun and excitement. Those rugby players earn their money with the amount of body-breaking tackles that they go through during 80 tough, all-action minutes. Its a lot like NFL, only more flowing and forceful. The final score was 16-16, pretty rare for a rugby match to end in a draw but well worth the £11 entry fee. Season tickets at St Helens cost from as little as £40. Some people would pay that amount of money to be able to drink Sir Alex’s piss.
And thats one of the key differences between rugby league and football. Money. The foreign investment helps push up the prices. Like Mr Arab in his Shell Petrol station gives a toss about the Manchester City fan who is struggling to pay his morgage due to the global credit crunch. These footballers who get paid £200,000 a week to run around for a bit, dive, put a few barely-identifiable words into a so-called sentence during an interview, put on a suit, swear, abuse the ref and then drive home to their mansions in their Ferrari’s, whilst stopping off to a) beat up someone outside McDonalds, b) Go and bet illegally on a coming match or c) go sleep with some old granny.

Lets go watch some rugby.

WIGAN 0-1 CHELSEA

Shaun — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 18:55:09 +0000

After last weeks narrow, unlucky loss at Wet Sham, Chelsea were the visitors to the JJB Stadium on Sunday afternoon. The game started with the news that Mike Pollit replaced Chris Kirkland in the Wigan goal due to the latter sustaining an injury in the warmup. Bramble also came in at the heart of the defence.
After 3 minutes, Lee Cattermole, making his home debut, was accused of handball just outside the Wigan box and Deco stepped up to take the free kick. And what a kick it was. Straight into the corner of Pollit’s goal. The keepers positioning was a bit dodgy if i’m being harsh. The bad start glavanied the Latics and we pressurised the Chelsea defence with some superb one-touch football. Zaki and Palacious went close with Cech being tested. Chelsea struggled to create chances all game and should consider themselves very lucky to have escaped with a win. Maybe a penalty could have been given, when Cech pushed Boyce over during a corner but in a poor second half, where few chances were created, it was Petr to the rescue for the Blues when he diverted a Kapo drive round the post in the dying minutes.
Full time at the JJB Stadium, its finished Wigan 0-1 Chelsea.

PLAYER RATINGS
Pollitt. 7 had little to do but could have been at fault for goal.
Boyce. 8 A rock the centre of the defence.
Bramble 9 Superb, my man of the match- won everything in air and kept Le Sulk at bay.
Figeroioa 7 Sometimes disappeared.
Koumas. 7 Injured before the break but he had done well.
Cattermole. 6 I thought his distribution was ok but he ran around like a headless chicken. A poor man’s Brown
Palacious. 8 Committed.
Heskey. 7 Won the headers and looked more mobile than usual.
Zaki. 8 Ran around a lot and made good runs. Promising…
Melchiot. 8 Linked up well with Valencia.
Valencia 7. Sometimes disappeared during the game.

SUBS
De Ridder 3. Clumsy, couldn’t cross for his life and slow. Slipped about 100 times as well.
Kapo/ Camera didn’t have enough time to show what they could do.

GAME RATING: 5/10.

Car stickers in Wigan

Shaun — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 14:45:48 +0000

On my way home from work in Wigan the other day, i noticed a pregnant woman standing next to her car at the side of the road. Now, because i am a caring person i stopped to help. It turned out that she had a flat tyre, so i spent 2 hours at the side of the road fixing her tyre. During the 2 hours the woman didn’t even speak to me once! She didn’t even bother to say thank you when i had finished repairing her tyre! So, i got up and walked back to my car and as i did so i noticed a sticker in the back of her car window. It read ‘My other cars a Porsche’.

I couldn’t believe it. I had spent 2 hours fixing her tyre when she had another car at home which she could have used to get her car home! I pointed this out to the woman but she said that “The sticker is only a joke, calm down!!!”

I was upset because i didn’t realise about these joke stickers in the back of cars. A month later i saw the same woman in her car at some traffic lights. This time she had another sticker in her back window which said, ‘Baby on board’. I thought to myself, “hey love, you ain’t gonna trick me this time!”

So i put my foot down and slammed into the back of her car.

Sunday’s big Showdown

Shaun — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 14:33:30 +0000

The Latics had eight players away on international duty this week, some only returning on Friday, and Bruce may make changes, following an opening-day defeat at West Ham.

Jason Koumas is pushing for a start after scoring for Wales, and Ryan Taylor (shin) is back in contention – while Erik Edman (knee ligament) remains on course for an October return after resuming light training this week.

WIGAN ATHLETIC – CHELSEA
Kick-off at the JJB Stadium is at 1.30pm.

Wigan (from): Kirkland, Melchiot, Boyce, Scharner, Figueroa, Valencia, Cattermole, Palacios, Kapo, Heskey, Zaki, Bramble, Brown, De Ridder, Kilbane, Koumas, Taylor, Camara, Sibierski, Montrose, Nash, Pollitt.

MY PREDICTION: LATICS 2-1 CHELSEA