So to another game, it has been a somewhat quieter week in the world of Wigan Athletic, strange isn’t it! The Premier League starts up again and all our news is put to one side, even if there is a similar controversy; that just seems to be swept under the carpet. Strange once again, you could call it Double standards, but hey!
Luckily in the TNS offices here in Wigan, we have no carpets to sweep anything under, it’s all wooden floors & the odd rug. Moonay has check this morning to see if there is anything under the rug, but alas all he found was Common Sense.
Am I on my own Bandwagon with that?
So to the 20th game in the Sky Bet Championship; Wigan Athletic will be playing Norwich City at the DW Stadium. The match will be played on Saturday the 6th of December; kick-off is at 3pm.
Going into this game both team are suffering from a lack of form, Wigan are in 23rd place with just 17 pts, with just Blackpool below them on 9 pts. Norwich, though higher in the table are in 11th place with 27 pts, but are currently dropping like the ‘proverbial stone’ with their recent form. Top of the table are Derby with 35 pts.
Looking at recent form coming into this game, it’s not good reading for either team, the last 6 games, Wigan are 19th & Norwich are 20th in the form table, both have taken 5 points from the last 18, in fact their last 4 games have been identical with 3 defeats & 1 draw:
- Wigan P 6 W 1 D 2 L 3 (Win against Derby & Draws against Fulham & Middlesbrough)
- Norwich P 6 W 1 D 2 L 3 (Win against Bolton & Draws against Sheffield Wednesday & Brighton)
The most recent match; had seen Wigan travel to Sheffield Wednesday for Malky’s 2nd game in charge, the 26th minute saw Chris McCann powerful header give Wigan a 1-0 lead. This unfortunately last for all of a minute, as Sheffield Wednesday then went up the field to equalise. & true to form, Steve May got the winner and a team that hadn’t won in 10, beat Wigan Athletic. Wildheart’s match write up can be found here.
Norwich, who was top of the Championship at the end of September, since that away win against Blackpool, have seen just 1 win & 6 defeats in the last 10 games! Hence dropping to 11th in the league, last time out saw Norwich lose 2-1 to Reading, and a very restless Carrow Road crowd, highlighted their frustrations with Boos at the end of the game.
Previous Games between the 2; have only seen 10 games, this will be the 7th time in the league the 2 teams have met up.
2 Seasons in the Premier League (2011-13) & a season in League Division One (2003-04), have seen Norwich win 2, Wigan win 1 & 3 draws. In between these league matches; was a friendly in August 2009 at Carrow Road, which saw Norwich win 3-2. Finally are the 3 cup matches, September 1998 saw Worthington Cup clashes, Norwich winning both games with a 4-2 aggregate.
It’s the final Cup match you probably all remember, yes another FA Cup tie. If you read my previews, you’ll know we often go on some FA cup adventures and this FA Cup 4th Round tie was special at the time. Of course it’s since been surpassed with winning the FA Cup, but alas let’s take you back to 1987.
Number 1 at the time was Steve Silk Hurley with ‘Jack your Body’, Terry Waite had just been kidnapped & over 3,000,000 were unemployed. Wigan still had its old Market Square, plenty of Pubs and the Ribble Bus Station.
Wigan’s FA Cup adventure in 1986/87 at the time was the greatest we’d had. The first round, saw a 3-1 win against Lincoln City, the 2nd Round a 5-0 hammering away to Darlington, the 3rd Round a 2-1 win against Gillingham. It was the 4th round when Wigan drew Norwich out of the bag.
The match played at Springfield Park on a cold Saturday at the very end of January. Paul Jewell, the hero of the day getting the only goal of the game! More remarkable was the fact that Norwich were a 1st Division team at the time, in fact come May they finished 5th in the League. Wigan was a 3rd Division Team punching well above their weight.
Moving on, the 5th Round; saw Wigan then beat 2nd Division Hull City 3-0 in a cracking game. Then that game in March, a Sunday, very windy, a 6th Round FA Cup tie vs Leeds United, themselves a 2nd Division team, could Wigan get to the Semi Finals?
Unfortunately not, Leeds beat Wigan 2-0 at Springfield Park, I never did get to see that game (Dad wouldn’t let me go)! If you can also remember football hooliganism at that time, was at its height and there was a massive Police Presence surrounding Wigan that day, alas.
Anyway I digress, overall in the 10 games, between Wigan Athletic & Norwich City, has seen Wigan win 2, Norwich win 5 and there’s been 3 draws. Once again thanks to Cockney Latic for the head to head info.
Referee from the Game will be Oliver Langford, 2 speedy blokes on the side will be Michael D’aguilar & Shaun Hudson. With the 4th other bloke being Stuart Attwell (he must have done something wrong)?
In the 8 Season’s Oliver has been a Ref, he’s never officiated a game for Wigan, but he last looked after a Norwich Championship game in April 2011. A thumping 6-0 win over Scunthorpe with just the one red card issued to Scunthorpe’s Paul Reid. Ironically enough guess who got the goals on that day, Yep, a Grant Holt Hat-trick, backed up with another Hat-trick from Simeon Jackson.
Team News for Wigan will just be for Mr Ramis, who was subbed at Half Time last weekend for Mr Perch, whether it was an injury, or just because he was playing shit, we’ll find out come 2pm Saturday?
Can’t find anything on Norwich, Neil Adams may have a full team to choose from, then again they are knitting jumpers at Carrow Road, and so everything must be rosy for the Physio table? Must be if they’ve got time for this, don’t you just love commercialism.
The Bookies see as a close game, with ‘K%ck Off’ saying 38% believe Wigan will win, 35% believe it’ll be Norwich and 27% going for the draw.
William Hill will give you 17/10 for both the Home & Away Win & 21/10 for a draw, so even they are calling it a close game.
For me, I’m hoping Malky can start to instil some of his own thoughts & tactics into this Wigan team and start getting the results, 1-0 will do! Just if results don’t improve, January may see a Garage Sale of players as Dave either is forced to sell up from the 6th December through those ‘Double Standard Band Wagon’ people, or we start to look to League One football next season.
Andy
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