Okay so just returned back from Spain for the family holiday. The TNS Wigan offices are still quite but getting a little busier, with Steve returning back with his new bible & Bert finding his Sam Tomkins voodoo doll during a spring clean, oh how he reminisced.
I can also confirm my flight to Spain was indeed a family Holiday; I wasn’t on an ‘Ed Woodward’ style trip to try and buy players for Uwe’s Wigan. Only to find out the Agent was from the Hiper Dino chain trying to sell me a bottle of San Miguel & not the goalkeeper Adrián San Miguel.
By the way a nice beer at €1.59 a litre bottle.
So to the third league game of the season, not been as good a start as Wigan would have expected! With an deflected, arching, curving, looping, dangling in the air for ages, 3 minutes of extra time, Charlton, deflected shocker, stopping Wigan from making it 2 draws on the spin (Opening draw vs Reading). In fact looking at the other side of summer (do you remember when England were still in the World Cup), Wigan have won just 1 of their last 9 games & a 1-0 win over Birmingham at the end of April.
This 3rd League Match is against Cardiff City, it’ll be played on Tuesday the 19th August, kick off is 7:45pm, and the game will be at the Cardiff City Stadium.
Wigan start the match 18th in the league, with Cardiff currently 3rd, with 4 points, after a 1-1 draw on the opening day against Blackbuuuuuurn and then a cracking 3-1 win over Huddersfield this weekend.
Team news for both teams is sketchy at this time of the season with the Transfer window still open, with Ole Gunnar Solskjaer potentially looking to hand new signings Anthony Pilkington & Sean Morrison their first Cardiff starts?
For Wigan, Uwe will be hoping that some of his key players of last season in Emerson Boyce and Shaun Maloney could make their first appearances of the season and also James Tavernier could also get his first league start too. Wigan will also be hoping the speculation of James McArthur leaving for around £4 Million to a number of Premier League teams, will not affect his temperament.
The last time Wigan played Cardiff was in Wigan’s FA Cup run to the Semi Finals, beating Cardiff at the City Stadium 2-1 in the FA Cup 5th Round, with McCann & Watson getting the goals in February.
Head to head has seen a long league history between Wigan & Cardiff, 22 times in the league and for the first time last season, in the aforementioned FA Cup, to make it 23 games. Wigan have the upper hand on these matches with 10 wins and 9 draws to Cardiff’s 4 wins.
Last league match was in April 2005 with Jason Roberts & Alan Mahon getting the goals in a 2-0 Championship away victory in Wigan’s promotion season. Looking at the previous matches, Wigan often played Cardiff in the old Third Division from 1982 through to 1990, then in Division 3 for a couple of seasons, then Divisions 2, 1 & The Championship in a 6 year period, with this League game being the first League between the 2 teams in over 9 years. Thanks to Cockney Latic for the Fixture History.
Referee for the match will be Robert Madley though I think they call him, Sir, Boss or Bobby, Linesman are John Brooks & Simon Long with the 4th Official of Dean Whitestone. I believe Bobby is young.
Anyway I am hoping that Wigan get a good result out of this game, as no wins from their first 4 matches (including the defeat to Burton in the League Cup) would I fear start to put unnecessary pressure on Uwe.
There have been Twitter rumours recently circulating around Wigan of fans wanting Owen Coyle to return! But TNS can exclusively report after an investigation, found it was just 4 blokes sat round a table in the Bowling Green Pub on Ormskirk Road, with Smart Phones in hand.
Anyway, Come On Wigan, lets come away from the Welsh Hills with 3 points.
Andy
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