So for the 2nd match on the spin Wigan failed to hold on to 3 points & come away with a draw! Well actually it’s their 3rd match they’ve gone 1-0 up but we’ll not mention the 2nd half capitulation against Sunderland.
With a number of key draws Saturday it’s almost Francis Rossi with how the table looks with just Birmingham’s defeat to Newcastle the only team in the bottom 6 without a point.
So the next important match is today’s 12pm Wolves vs West Brom. A victory for Wolves (2 draws, 3 defeats last 5) it’ll make Wigan’s task of safety all the harder. Moving to 37 points, 17th, Wigan 19th & 1 point from safety. A draw & Rick Parfitt will strum his rhythm guitar, the table as it was with everyone 1 point to the good. West Brom wins (3 wins from last 5) & even better for Wigan, Wolves stay 2 points back with a worse goal difference.
Wolves win (assuming 1-0 win)
17 Wolves 36 37 -22
18 Blackpool 36 36 -22
19 Wigan 36 36 -23
Wolves draw
17 Blackpool 36 36 -22
18 Wigan 36 36 -23
19 Wolves 36 35 -23
Wolves defeat (again assuming a 1-0 defeat)
17 Blackpool 36 36 -22
18 Wigan 36 36 -23
19 Wolves 36 34 -24
This would take us to next weekend & Wigan’s big clash on Sunday with West Ham, though prior to that we have 3 important matches on the Saturday (all 12:45pm kick off):
Blackburn vs Man Utd
Blackpool vs Bolton
Sunderland vs Wolves
I’m not going to put hypothetical tables on what could be after these results, or we could be here all morning. We just know for Wigan to have a realistic chance of a 7th season, these teams around us need to drop points. You would expect this for Blackburn, but both Blackpool & Wolves have matches they could get points from.
So to the West Ham match, the one positive Wigan will have @ 4pm Sunday, is they’ll know what they will need to do for their penultimate game. The negative and it’s a kind of large negative is Wigan could go into the West Ham match knowing a defeat will see them relegated in all but name (if previous results all go against Wigan).
Keeping it positive a victory against West Ham (1 point in last 6) & other results going our way and Wigan would relegate both Wolves & West Ham. It would then be as simple as a draw against Stoke with an eye on Blackpool’s match against Man Utd for safety.
I’m not going to cover the final weekend of the season until after 6pm next Sunday! Wigan could be 17th, 20th or anything in between & we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.
Again as in previous articles it’s a lot of “if’s”, “but’s” & “maybe’s”, but at least we now know how important the next 4 games are to Wigan…..
Andy
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