Wigan Athletic were finally beaten in the league at Villa Park in a comfortable win for the home side thanks to a goal in either half. The first, a brilliant effort from Gabby Agbonlahor, who then turned provider for the second; setting up an unmissable effort for Darren Bent in front of the Holte End.
If you were to glance at the statistics, you’d be forgiven for assuming that Roberto Martinez might be leaving Birmingham thinking that his side deserved something
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It’s just under five months since Wigan were last at Villa Park and they’ve proven to be something of a bogey team for us in our limited history of playing them. This will only be the 7th time this league fixture has been played, but we’re yet to win one. The pattern so far is LDLDLD; clearly we need to break that pattern one way or another today.
Here’s how Alex McLeish intends to grab the vital win:
Aston Villa
Wigan
1
Shay Given
26
Ali Al-Habsi
2
Alan
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Charles N’Zogbia’s well taken opener was cancelled out by a rare Ashley Young free kick during a first half which threatened to boil over, Emile Heskey providing much of the heat, but the second half failed to live up to expectations. Neither side can feel aggrieved with an equal share of the spoils.
It was a strange game. Wigan started the livelier, better organised side. Villa’s early response mostly coming from an industrious Kyle Walker looking to exploit space down the
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It’s the penultimate home game of the season and the opportunity to make our future in the Premier League a mathematical certainty against a Wigan side that are fighting for their life.
Ciaran Clark is out with hamstring injury picked up in training yesterday, Jean II Makoun is still out with a dead leg and Gabby is unavailable after falling ill overnight.
Charles N’Zogbia passed his late fitness test, but Victor Moses will replace Mohamed Diame in the Wigan side.
Here are the
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I’m starting to think that losing the opening game against Wigan will turn out to be a good thing, if given time. Whether the Peace Cup could be dismissed as just pre-season or not, we were on a high from picking up a trophy and arguably “discovering” some hidden gems among our reserves.
Wigan was definitely a wake up call. The players lost their day off and were dragged in for training yesterday. No one at the club
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I waited many hours after the game to write this so it wouldn’t get bogged down in negativity. I’ve just been reading the 1,100 words I’ve written and decided to start again. I failed to keep the negativity under control. I’ve yet to complete part two of my season expectations and I don’t want this one game to change my outlook. It shouldn’t either, one game does not make a season.
Let’s keep it simple. We lost
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I generally try to find some positives even in defeat. Right now, I’m struggling, I really am. That was completely inept today.
I avoid criticizing the manager, Martin O’Neill has forgotten more than I know about football, but when I saw Petrov and Delph on the starting team sheet I was concerned. Petrov hasn’t played since dislocating his shoulder in Spain. Delph is a 19 year old from League One.
I’ll do a full review later. For
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When new manager Roberto Matinez was recently placed in charge of the Lactics he was returning to the club that he had spent 6 years at as a player. Before coming back to Wigan, he spent a couple of seasons managing Swansea, another club he spent a few years at as a player, and by all accounts he did a bang up job. He lead Swansea to the League One Title and picked up Manager of the Season
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You only have to cast your mind back to the final day of January this year to recall this fixture from last season, which is useful as it allows me to showcase a nifty little feature of the blog. If you click on the ‘last match’ or ‘next match’ links in the sidebar on the right you will be taken to all the content I have for that game. That might contain previews, reviews, wallpapers, videos, basically anything
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