Well yet another enthralling International break saw boredom at an unprecedented level.
Everyone’s been in the TNS Offices this fortnight, some aimlessly walking around the office, others looking in awe at Bert’s painting! Yes, Bert was that bored with no Footy, he’s painted the TNS office, 20 Ltrs of Dulux Eggshell. The little excitement we’ve had involved fighting with plastic sheeting, but it at least kept the paint off the desks & Steve’s books.
But if you do want some real excitement after that England, why not try Jimmy’s new Book ‘The Life of Pies‘.
So to this weekend’s football, it has Wigan Athletic vs Brentford, it will be the 12th match in the Sky Bet Championship. It will be played at the DW Stadium on Saturday the 18th of October. Of course Uwe’s previous club, which he managed from 2011 through to 2013, before packing his bags for Wigan.
Last matches seemed so long ago, the 4th of October, saw Wigan draw 2-2 away to Wolves, were Brentford had a cracking 3-1 win over mid table Reading. It meant that Wigan remained in 21st on 10 pts & Brentford moved up to 10th on 17 pts. Norwich are top of the Championship with 21 pts.
Looking at recent form coming into this game is not good reading for Wigan:
- Wigan P 6 W 0 D 3 L 3 (Draws with Huddersfield, Forest & Wolves)
- Brentford P 6 W 3 D 0 L 3 (Wins over Brighton, Leeds & Reading)
Actually Wigan’s last match wasn’t against Wolves; they also had a ‘Behind Closed Doors’ game last week at Christopher Park.
The match saw Wigan beat Rotherham United 3-0, with goals from Oriol Riera, Roger Espinoza & Marc-Antoine Fortune (Yep he scored).
Apparently Chris McCann was at the stadium, but didn’t play. The greatest positive was that Ben ‘I scored the winner at the Cup Final’ Watson, came off the bench to play the last 20 minutes. We didn’t get to go though.
Just like to ask Jonathan Jackson what TNS has done wrong to not be invited to the match, you know we have apologised for the Table Tennis incident. But hey, if you have your favourites, we’ll just watch through the railings.
So to previous games between the 2 teams, we’ve met a total of 32 times. Wigan do hold a big advantage in these games, they’ve won 18, Brentford have won 7 and there’s been 7 draws. Though Wigan have the advantage, it’ll be the 1st meeting in over 11 years, the last game was in April 2003 in Division 2.
Wigan winning 2-0 with goals from, wait for it, Nathan Levi Fontaine Ellington & Lee Henry McCulloch, Yep, love for them both to be playing this weekend, with of course some space time continuum, so they were still in their 20’s.
Most notable match between Wigan & Brentford was the Freight Rover Trophy final. Played on the 1st June 1985, in front of a 40,000 crowd at the old Wembley Stadium. Wigan won the game 3-1, with goals from Mike Newell, Tony Kelly & David Lowe, I was only 15 at the time and my Dad wouldn’t let me go, yep, cue violins.
Final game of note looking at the records was a friendly played on the 4th January 1958 at Springfield Park (well assuming it was played there). It was of course the first time the 2 teams had met. Brentford ran out 2-1 winners, it was a time when Wigan were playing in the Lancashire Combination; apparently Roy Smith was our Season’s top scorer with 30 goals. Brentford were in the old Division 3 South, that season finishing 2nd and just 2 points away from promotion to the 2nd Division. Once again, thanks to Cockney Latic for the wonderful head to head info.
Referee for the game will be Tony Harrington, with his side kicks of Mark Dwyer & Mark Jones, with the 4th Unofficial being David Webb. Thanks to ‘Rate the Ref‘ for the details.
As for Tony, his last game for Wigan was on the 2nd November last year, when he dished out just 2 yellows as Wigan beat Huddersfield 2-1. Tony’s never been in charge of a Brentford game. So to pad out the preview, this season Tony has officiated 9 games, handing out 26 yellows.
Team News after an International break is always a little sketchy! Positives for Wigan is that Ben Watson had a run out against Rotherham in the friendly; all Wigan’s players came back from International duty with no noticeable bumps or bruises. Surfing on behalf of Mark Warburton, there’s nothing in the ether to say Brentford had any worrying injury news.
As for the result, well the bookies see this match as being a Home win, with 46% believing Wigan will triumph, 29% believe Brentford will drive back down the M6 with 3 points & 25% believe Wigan will go 3 games on the spin with draws.
For me, all I want from Wigan is to continue to the improved performances, go the next step and push on for those 3 points.
Andy
See did you notice I never mentioned the punch once.
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