I don’t know what to make of Wigan Athletic, they’re something of a Jekyll and Hyde team. I’ve all the time in the world for Roberto Martinez, he definitely knows his potatoes, but results and performances frequently betray the fact that he’s the youngest manager in the league.
Watching Wigan at home this season, the first thing that will strike the casual observer is the number of empty seats in the DW Stadium; they’re the worst supported team in the
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An all too typical last minute goal from Paul Scharner set up an extremely nervous four added minutes, but it wasn’t enough to cancel out Stewart Downing’s first half opener or what turned out to be the winning goal from Emile Heskey 10 minutes earlier. Not a classic performance, but spirited and determined at times, it’s an important three points, something to build on and hopefully a threshold game.
Houllier made the necessary, but not straightforward decision to drop Richard
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I may have spotted a Baggies fan or two playfully suggesting that their team could be responsible for the sacking of two Premier League managers in a week. I don’t think a loss would automatically lead there, but it would increase the pressure on Houllier exponentially. Beyond breaking point? Not quite, but close I’d imagine.
The good news is that this game is at home, all away fixtures leave me with a sense of foreboding these days.
I think we
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Gerard Houllier has stood on the touchline and overseen 11 Premier League games now and the table doesn’t lie, the stats are grim. His two wins represent an 18% win ratio and you can put that up against the records of his predecessors if you wish in the manager performance table I complied just before this season kicked off.
That particular table is sorted by percentage of available points won and Houllier would sit at the bottom of the pile
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I hate to sound like a broken record, but a consistent theme I’ve stressed in the Statshack series is the need to look at match statistics as a whole and to be suspicious of anyone attempting to leverage a point with the use of a single metric. Passing for example.
Last season, I read many times that the number of complete passes was an indication that our brand of football was dour and failing to improve, except when the statistics
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It started badly; the first five minutes littered with silly errors, soft free kicks and comical defending at set pieces, and it went down hill from there really.
Ngog opened the scoring in the 14th minute with an unchallenged diving header to send Skrtel’s knock down in, the corner coming from a typically poor piece of play from Stephen Warnock. Warnock was done for pace by Ngog, albeit blatantly offside, two minutes later and the Frenchman made no mistake with
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We were in 16th place when we travelled to Anfield last year amidst much doom and gloom and yet we came away with all three points after a hugely satisfying 3-1 victory. We return to Liverpool on Monday night once again in 16th place, and Liverpool in 11th to their 10th last time, but this time Villa have 15 league games behind them, not one.
We haven’t occupied this lowly a league position at this time of year since we
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An early goal from the spot and a late goal via a deflection was enough to cancel Gabby Agbonlahor’s first half leveller and send us out of the Carling Cup, triggering disgraceful scenes as City fans invaded the pitch to taunt Villa fans locked in the away section.
The fact we dominated the game is neither here nor there, derby games are a different kettle of fish and it all comes down to failing to capitalise on opportunities and inexplicably slack
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Local derby, 120th competitive meeting as it happens. Cup game. Mid-week. Under the floodlights. Only a fool would try to predict the outcome of one these; all bets are off and anything can happen. McLeish has called for a hostile atmosphere and described the reputation of the City fans as being “volatile but not in a nasty way”, whatever that might mean.
Meanwhile, Gérard Houllier has appealed for calm: “It’s a game which is on TV, and it’s a derby,
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