Yesterday was more likely to be associated with bonfires and fireworks but for Wigan fans trooping away from Gigg Lane last night it was definitely a case of witnessing a late Halloween horror show so inept had been the Latics performance.
Wigan made four changes to the starting line-up with O’Donnell, Junior, Vuckic and Davies replacing Jaaskelainen, Power, Jacobs and Wildschut, a side on paper that looked no weaker for the changes.
And so it proved for the first fifteen minutes with Wigan utilising the full width of the pitch with James and Love breaking forwards to support the attacking triumvirate of Vuckic, Grigg and Davies, it seemed only a matter of time before the deadlock was broken. Broken it was but amazingly not by Wigan and with a large helping of farce to go with it.
Wigan struggled to deal with runs from Hussey and Rose all afternoon on the flanks and from a Hussey cross the ball found the powerful Pope whose effort weakly reached O’Donnell but amazingly he let the ball slip from his grasp and as it spun towards the goal line O’Donnell compounded his error by actually pushing the ball over the line and against the run of play Wigan were behind.
This should have served to show that Wigan could weather a setback and display the character to come back into the game but for all the prompting of Perkins and Junior chances were few and far between. Wigan dominated in terms of possession and it was from one such attack that they went two goals behind. A Wigan corner was cleared by Mellis who broke out of defence, outpaced the chasing Perkins who seemed reluctant to attempt a challenge possibly fearing a red card and with Morgan the only defender Mellis drew the Wigan captain, passed to Mayor whose fine shot left O’Donnell with no chance.
Bury were very much in the ascendancy now and Wigan seemed incapable of string a constructive series of passes together and they made this dominance pay in injury time when a cross once again from the left by Rose found the head of Pope who headed it unchallenged back across the area to Cameron who headed it into the unguarded net.
Wigan slunk off at half time to jeers of derision from their large away following who fifteen minutes alter were cheering the inclusion of Jacobs and Wildschut into the starting line up instead of Vickic and the anonymous Grigg
In truth it had little effect other than to porvide a more balanced line up and Hussey and Pope both went close for the home side.
The Wigan substitutes did inject some pace into the proceedings and Wildschut on one of hi now famous long forays into the Bury half found Junior and then Jacobs but his shot was well blocked by the block from Cameron
Bury brought former Wigan loanee Clarke off the bench and move that brought jeers from a percentage of the Wigan crowd but Clarke responded in the best possible manner for a footballer to silence the crowd by increasing Bury’s lead when he met a Riley cross and prodded the ball home
Wigan continued to huff and puff but despite a couple of half chances the final whistle brought a welcome end to a horror show from Wigan Athletic and Wigan’s first foray into the first round of the F.A.Cup in over a decade saw the Latics exit with barley whimper.
Team Line up and player ratings
O’Donnell…3, poor mistake for first goal seemed to affect the rest of his performance.
James…….3, failed to find a forward pass and got caught out of position all too often
McCann….5, a solid performance in a poor team
Morgan……4, not his best performance
Daniels……4, kept trying
Love………3, was hammered by Rose out wide
Junior…….4, another game another booking, withdrawn
Perkins…..5, let down by those around him
Vuckic…….4, offered little, withdrawn
Grigg……3, not sure he touched the ball in 45 minutes, withdrawn
Davies…..5, never stopped trying.
Subs Used
Jacobs…….5, for Grigg, injected much needed pace and creativity into the side.
Wildschut…5, for Vuckic, ran hard but little end product
Power ……5, for Junior, added creativity to midfield
ATT…………………………. 3,856
Entertainment rating……..1/10 if you are a Wigan fan, 9/10 if you are a Bury fan
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