With their inability to hold onto a lead, Latics are developing a bit of a reputation as one of the bikes of this division. There appears to be little chance of them keeping their legs together so the trick is going to be making sure that they give as much as they receive and of course practice safe shooting. I know the thought of that is enough to fill most of us with fear, but circumstances may be on our side.
One look at the evidence is enough to tell you that Latics play best against teams that fancy their chances against us, that want to play football and, above all, want to attack. The worse thing for Latics now would be to have to face teams that have an excuse to defend and nothing else; we know we can’t break them down. If we’re going to score goals them we’ll need the space to do it. So what are the chances?
Just like Spurs, anything we get at Anfield is a bonus, unlike Spurs, we’ve got bugger all chance. Jewell sold his soul to Bill Shankley for that win when he kept Bradford up and can never beat them again. It’s not all gloomy though and a point will never be enough for West Ham, even if they’ve only pride at stake, they will have to come at us.
With Boro safe they won’t have their ‘bore them to death’ heads on, and with a tidy sum riding on each place, they may even have a go. It’s by no means a certainty but it could be well over by the trip to Sheffield. At worst I can see us looking for a draw, let’s hope they need the same too.
In any case it seems highly unlikely that Latics will be down come that last day of the season. It’s in the hands of the players to make it better than that.
The most worrying aspect of it all is that no one seems to fancy Latics to go down. Touch wood that it won’t jinx us. It wouldn’t be so bad if Lawro or one of the other sycophantic eejit pundits were making the sort of noises that we’ve come to expect. You know – a snivelling paean to how it would be so good to see West Ham and Charlton stay up, with the subtext that Latics don’t really belong here.
Maybe they’re coming round to the idea that we might be around for a while.
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