More ups than downs

There was a question posed on social media this week, I’m paraphrasing but essentially it was asking what was the worst feeling after a match involving your team.

There were many to choose from, even though we’ve had more highs than lows over the last couple of decades.

Immediately the ones that spring to mind all came in one season. Losing to Maribor when all we needed was a point to qualify was a blow.

Losing to Arsenal in the FA Cup semi-finals when we were ten minutes away from reaching a subsequent final was an even bigger blow, to then lose out to QPR in the Play-Offs just a month later felt an even bigger kick in the teeth.

We’ve had some great days since that season of course. Covid and administration aside we’ve had more ups than downs, even if we include the disastrous spells of Mackay and Joyce in that.

This season there hasn’t been much in the way of disappointment, supporters are back in stadia and apart from a few Tuesday’s in the autumn Latics have been riding high at the top of the league.

In complete contrast from twelve months ago, nonetheless Saturday was a day ful of disappointment.

Not with Leam and the lads, far from it but from the disastrous refereeing decisions that prevented us from getting three points.

Trevor Kettle, I’ll leave the puns alone made so many poor decisions on Saturday it’s a wonder he’s allowed to referee at this level at all.

First the blatant stamp on Tom Pearce by Connor Chaplain, right in front of the referee and his assistant.

Followed by the same assistant disallowing a perfectly good second goal by Will Keane that would and should have handed Latics another three points.

They say the decisions even themselves out over a season. Well in that case, I expect a flood of fortuous decisions coming our way in the new year.

Against a poor Ipswich side we dominated and on another day should have won comfortably but we’re still in touch with top spot and have games in hand.

A week in which we reached the FA Cup third round and picked up four points can’t really be sniffed at.

Next up it’s Oxford a trip I wish I was making, we had a fantastic time there in 2017 amazingly on the same weekend in the year as this week’s trip.

The world has changed a lot since then and Oxford themselves are nothing like the side we faced back in 2017.

Three points would still be a lovely way to begin the Christmas celebrations mind.

After this article was originally submitted the Omicron variant of Covid 19 caused havoc with the fixture list across the UK. At the time of publication the trip to Oxford is on, but who knows what the next few weeks may bring.

Whatever happens – keep yourselves safe and up the tics!

Sean Livesey

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