Looking up

Three games, three clean sheets, three goals and five huge points.

It’s been quite the week for Wigan Athletic, many will file Stevenage and Exeter in the disappointing column but there was none of that disappointment on Tuesday as Latics once again showed their credentials with an emphatic victory over one of the fancied sides in League One.

Since the start of the season Latics have been improving with every match, I think the defeats to Barnsley and Reading were in isolation.

Since then Shaun Maloney’s side have generally had the better of each match they’ve played without the goals/points that we maybe should have had.

Against Exeter on Saturday we could well have scored three goals with Dale Taylor and Dion Rankine both missing gilt edged chances whilst the Exeter keeper pulled off a wonder save to keep out former Exeter defender Will Aimson.

Although the lads would have been frustrated after Stevenage and Exeter it’s important to remember that both those sides had come to shut up shop, we do need to get better at breaking down those sides but it’s a completely different ball game when you play a side who actually want to play football as we did on Tuesday.

Peterborough are always one of the favourites at this level, in many ways they’re probably the sort of club we should be looking at emulating in terms of the academy.

They bring players through, giving them a path to the first team. They impress for the Posh and then move on and the Football League is peppered with players who came through that academy.

We’ve had the better of Peterborough in recent memory but many would have argued that Tuesday’s match was the most difficult of the three, after missing out on the play-offs in the last two seasons Darren Ferguson’s side will expect to be up there this season.

Once again we dominated on Tuesday, we may have had less possession but our control was no less than it was against Stevenage and Exeter.

The difference being that we took our chances on Tuesday. It was great to see Dale Taylor get two goals to open his account for us, he’d missed two glaring opportunities against Exeter so was important he managed to get an opportunity to bounce back and what goals they were.

The first a brilliant header, but the pass for the second from a passage of play between Babba Adeeko and Matt Smith was absolutely glorious.

What more can be said about Callum McManaman that’s not been said already?

To talk about a fairytale return to Wigan Athletic for McManaman would be playing it down. Here’s a player that had essentially retired from football. Released early from his Tranmere contract, sat at home for the best part of six months until he got a call from Shaun Maloney and Graham Barrow to see if he fancied training.

He’s got himself fit and he had one of the most consistent seasons of his career last year and has picked up where he left off.

Once again whenever he’s featured this season he’s made a difference and none more so than Tuesday night, that goal was absolutely world class and show’s that no matter his age he is still a step above the rest of the division.

All of that is before we even discuss the defence, a defence now that has big competition for places and wonderfully marshalled by Will Aimson and Jason Kerr that has kept five clean sheets in a row.

Their determination to keep a clean sheet in the last few minutes of Tuesday’s match was remarkable. He went under the radar by all accounts when he arrived in the summer but the signing of Aimson has to be the signing of the season, he and Kerr (who’s contract renewal was just as big as Aimson’s arrival) have been fantastic.

James Carragher came on from the bench on Tuesday which was the right decision to get some minutes in to Calvin Ramsey, it shows you just how blessed we are defensively at the moment as Carragher has surely been the player of the month for the last four weeks. So impressive has he been.

Things are definitely looking up at the Brick, many scoffed earlier this year when the Chairman and manager mentioned promotion and Shaun Maloney keeps mentioning it.

I still think promotion is a huge ask, especially with the teams up there this season and the huge budgets we’re competing against but quietly Shaun Maloney is getting consistent results from a Wigan Athletic side who look like they’ll run through walls for their manager.

It’s a world away from that defeat against Reading a few weeks back where many of our online community thought relegation was on the cards. In time honoured fashion you just have to ‘Let Latics Gel’ let em gel and see where they can go.

So on to Stockport on Saturday and quite literally one of the hottest tickets in town.

Tell that to those of us who saw us draw at Edgeley Park on our last visit there in 2003.

Only 6,719 on that day and you can bet a big proportion of that number were Wiganer’s as we marched on towards the Division Two title.

Certainly a damn sight more than the measly 844 they gave us this week.

Stockport like Bolton seem to have found another level of support over the last decade following well publicised financial issues, after our financial issues on two occasions our crowds have stagnated if not gone backwards.

I know it’s a slog and the DW is far too big for us but I really wish we could get a few more in to witness nights like Tuesday night.

It’s not just a football thing of course, in a town like ours a commitment to go to the football takes money that a lot of people simply don’t have. I get that, I really do. I just wish the clamour and enthusiasm for tickets for away games was sometimes replicated for home matches.

You never know what you’re gonna miss out on do you?

Sean Livesey

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