Trepidation

think there was a lot of trepidation heading in to February – by some stretch it was going to be the key month of the season for Wigan Athletic.

Playing a number of re-arranged matches alongside facing five of the current top ten including league leaders Rotherham and promotion chasing Wycombe made it feel key.

With a draw to Oxford United and narrow defeat to Sheffield Wednesday beginning the month you would have been forgiven for wondering whether Latics would have enough.

We needn’t have worried. Comprehensive wins over Charlton and Crewe were followed up by a fantastic point at Rotherham which on another day could and probably should have been all three, followed up by what felt like a season defining 3-1 win away at Wycombe Wanderers.

Let’s look at that Wycombe game, once again Leam Richardson was criticised ahead of kick-off for the line-up and formation played and despite this and Wycombe’s lead in the first half I thought we absolutely controlled the match. A change in formation and personnel after the break saw Latics put in one of the best performances since the turn of the year.

With some favourable fixtures over the next few weeks there’s a great opportunity for Latics to put light between themselves and the play-off places, it isn’t going to be easy and there may still be bumps in the road but with this squad of players and the togetherness that has been built over the last few months you wouldn’t want to bet against us.

Going back to the starting line-up and you can see why people were wondering what Steven Humphrys had to do to start, after his performance against Rotherham.

It may be frustrating to watch but this own paper’s Jimmy T hit on something by pointing to Josh Magennis being used to stretch and tire out defences before bringing on the likes of Humphrys and Gwion Edwards to exploit that and if you look at Tuesday night that’s exactly what happened.

I’m sure Josh will be the first to admit the start to his Wigan career hasn’t been as impactful as he and many of us would have expected but with more time that will surely change.

One has to hope we’ve experienced our own blip now but if there are more bumps in the road lets try not to jump down the throats of management and players alike.

Tendayi Darikwa and Gavin Massey have both put in man of the match performances after being written off over the last few months. Let’s hope more of those written off turn in performances like that, it will hopefully get us closer to the finishing line.

Sean Livesey

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