Well what the difference a 0-0 draw makes.
The TNS offices here in Wigan are much more positive, I reckon it was my poster, but Steve reckons it was something to do with Uwe Rosler and HIS Wigan Athletic players.
But for the record:
There are some very interesting discussions within the offices; Mr Wolf has been very vocal on his thoughts on Wigan’s next steps. So too the interesting discussions on the TNS forum, you should have a butchers on there once in a while & there’s no Talk Talk or Argos pop up adverts too.
So after a cracking draw against a top team in Nottingham Forest, Wigan faces another tough test. A Test to see if this new resolve will be Wigan’s 4th attempt to kick on for this season.
So to Wigan’s next match, this will be the 11th in the Sky Bet Championship. The match will be on Saturday the 4th of October, with a 3pm kick off. It will be played at Wolverhampton’s Molineux Stadium, apologies the link for directions to Molineux, I could only find this corporate link, try as I must on the Wolves Official Web Site.
Wolves find themselves in 7th place and a much respected position too, with 18 pts. Though in their last match, Wednesday evening, they did miss the chance to go top, with a home defeat to lowly Huddersfield (remember the bridge). The Terriers winning 3-1 to gain only their 3rd win of the season, moving ironically enough above Wigan. This was after on Loan Wigan player Grant Holt set up the first 2 goals, oh how we laughed at that one, decided to play now have we Grant….
Wigan are much further down the league, in 21st place with just 9 points from their 10 games. Worryingly for Wigan, even though they got a decent performance against Forest, it still meant they dropped 2 places to 20th on Tuesday. Wednesday’s midweek matches saw them drop another place to 21st, above the dreaded Relegation zone, with just Fulham, Bolton & Blackpool below them. You’ll also realise if Wigan don’t get anything from the match with Wolves, the way Kit Symonds has Fulham playing, they may get another 3 points from Middlesbrough, and turf Wigan through the trap door.
Top of the League are Norwich City on 20 points from their 10 games.
Previous games against Wolves have seen matches in the top 3 tiers of the English League. The most recent in May 2012, a 3-2 Premier League win for Wigan, with Di Santo & Boyce getting a brace, in front of 21,986 at the DW. In fact the last 7 league games vs Wolves, have seen Wigan win 5. Overall there have been 14 matches between the two, with Wigan winning 6, Wolves 5 and 3 draws. Again thanks to Cockney Latic for the head to head info.
There is one game that I remember well vs Wolves, played in the new JJB stadium on the 11th December 1999, it was a 3rd Round FA Cup match. At the time Wolves were a League Division 1 Team, Wigan a League Division 2 team. I remember the match because the crowd (10,531) was over 10,000, which was good for a Wigan team building its crowd base from the 3,000 we had a Springfield Park the previous season.
I remember the game well as Wigan played so good, they battered Wolves for the game, only for Wolves to get a 89th minute corner, and score from it. The player who scored I’ll not name names, but he’d got a lot of stick through his game from the Wigan fans for being, well, disproportionally large. Well that’s what I seem to remember, he’s now in Canada looking svelte, so it may have been the large bloke who won the corner? Anyway Wolves then lost 4-3 on penalties to Sheffield Wednesday in the 4th Round, so hey History.
The Referee for the game will be Andy Davies, his side kicks will be Robert Atkin and Chris O’Donnell, and the bloke on the side of the pitch drinking Lucozade will be Mark Howes.
Andy Davies, like many of Wigan’s Referees this season has mainly officiated League 1 & 2 matches, with the odd Championship game. He’s never managed either a Wigan or a Wolves game before, so this will be new territory for all. So why we can’t bring you previous battles, I can at least tell you how often this bloke gets his stuff out! Well looking at his stats, it’s often; he’s been the referee 58 times, dished out 213 Yellows and 10 Reds, his most recent Red, in his last game at AFC Wimbledon.
Wolves Team news for Kenny Jackett going into the game, they could hand new signing Yannick Sagbo his 2nd game, after he arrived on Loan from Hull, making his debut on Wednesday against Huddersfield. Kenny may also have to check on the fitness of Lee Evan, after he was subbed in the first half in the same match.
Wigan’s Team News for Uwe Rosler includes the long standing saga on when Ben will return? Also after being subbed at half time against Forest on Tuesday, will Boyce be fit for another match this Saturday?
We are straying a little away from the bookies for this match, to see what the probability of the result is? This time we have the boffins at Warwick University predicting this weekend’s result. Their team called the ‘Fink Tank‘, have 51% for a Wolves home win, 27% believe it’ll be a draw and the remaining 22% believe Wigan will come out with 3 points for this game! Most likely results are 1-0 @ 14.7%, 1-1 @ 12.4% and 2-0 @ 10.6%.
Current form is something I’ll cover too, as it’s rather interesting vs position in the league.
Though Wolves are 7th in the league their recent form hasn’t been as good as early season form, and in their last 6 games they’ve won 2, drawn 3 & lost 1, they’ve only had 1 win in the last 5. From those 6 matches they’ve gained 9 points.
Wigan, who we know are 21st, their recent league form fits well with their position in the table! With 1 win in the last 6 games, 2 draws & 3 defeats. They’ve gained just 5 points from these games, that win we mentioned, was 6 games ago & they’ve of course not had a win in the last 5 games.
Now if the Coach Driver has looked at Wolves Web Site for his Sat Nav directions, instead try 0871 222 2220 as they may be able to ‘bring you in’ if you find yourself lost coming off the M6 at Junction 12. Okay I did find this buried in their site this morning.
So all I really want is first, for all the players to get off the coach when they arrive at Molineux, then let’s have another good performance like last time out. Looking at form it could be a 4-3 thriller, or another 0-0 grind.
Come On WIGAN.
Andy
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