Of course, last night’s win wasn’t that easy, Latics won because they put the hard work in where as Liverpool didn’t, cared where as Liverpool didn’t and took nothing for granted where as Liverpool, erm, did.  In attitude, as well as ability, the visitors showed themselves as a side with only one world class player.

Steveee Geee?  Forget about it, I used to think of him as the English Roy Keane but Keane would never accepted a performance like this from his team, even more so a performance like this from himself.   Gerrard was repeatedly shown up by Diame and McCarthy and the signs of frustration were apparent well before his eightieth minute booking.

It wasn’t just England’s latest captain that misfired, despite some early rays of light and a decent amount of second half huffing and puffing.  Their only player who looked dangerous was Torres and he couldn’t manage to craft a decent enough chance on his own.  If he’d bagged one of the half chances that he did get, then who knows what would have happened, but he didn’t so we’ll leave it there.

Why were Liverpool so bad?  Well they looked like they didn’t have a plan, but I suspect that it was more to do with their plan not including Latics coming at them from the start, full of energy and a growing confidence and ultimately closing them out of the game.  Their manager talked last week about showing Latics respect, I think Stevie and his boys would struggle to look you in the eye if they tried to tell you that they thought they needed to do more than just turn up at the DW and go home with three points.

Enough about them, because it’s wrong for us not to savour a victory like this, beating “big four” sides isn’t quite passé yet and, as with Chelsea, the manner of victory was something to be even more proud of.  This was the vindication that Bobby’s tactics needed and a timely reminder that when the team pulls together they can make the system work.  Yes there was a lot of defending done but Latics attacked brightly both through patient build up, in the first half, and on the counter in the second.

This was so consummate a team performance that the only player you could really excluded from the man of the match reckoning is Chris Kirkland, but he had a relatively easy night, so he’ll perhaps not be bothered.  Caldwell and Bramble lead from the back, both full backs ran the lines tirelessly; Diame and McCarthy bossed the centre of the park, whilst Scharner made a nuisance of himself.  N’Zogbia and Rodallega provided a constant threat from out wide and Moreno never got out of Jamie Carragher’s face.

Of course they got the drop of luck that they’ve been missing, not only in finding Torres without his shooting boots, but in Kuyt’s perfectly measured pass to put Boyce in for his assist, in Carragher’s decision to vacate the space for Rodallega to run into.  The finish wasn’t the cleanest either, but none of that stops us taking a goal that we richly deserved and in some ways it’s more satisfying that we finally caught a break.

There has been much talk about this being a confidence building result, in reality the performance should give us even more heart.  The sort of teamwork that was on show here, the overbearing attitude being one of not want to let your team mates down has not always been apparent this season and as Paul Scharner pointed out over the weekend that attitude is nigh on a necessity if you’re going to avoid a relegation fight.

It’s one thing to say it and another for it to happen, but if Latics can take that sort of attitude, application and confidence into the next few games, if they can keep focussed and not get too carried away with a big victory then the coming weeks are looking a lot brighter.  In the space of ninety minutes, the fans will have gone from relying on games against Burnley, Hull and Portsmouth to wondering what we can get from Villa, City or even Arsenal.

Increased expectations can be a problem, but we’ve seen too much this season to allow ourselves the thought that, by this time next week, we could be sitting fairly pretty, all but out of the fight.  We’re still in recovery, we still need to take each game as it comes, but we need to make sure that we take them like this one but that’s how simple it would be to make all this season’s problems disappear.

Oh, and scousers, apparently you’ve never won on a Monday when you’ve been managed by Rafa, but at the same time Latics have never lost when they’ve played on a Monday night after the mini Perm has been to football ‘training’ in his away shirt.  It might have been his first but when things aren’t going your way you have to take cold comfort where you can find it.  Blame it all on ESPN, that’ll work.

Ok, so the financial restraints mean frustration over not signing David Villa rather than being outbid for one of Villa’s reserves and top notch in their case means world rather than Premier League class but that doesn’t detract from the point that out of supposed ‘big’ four or five they’re the one that looks most like a football club, for the time being at least.

Does any of that help Latics any as they head into a crucial stage of the season? Probably not, because as Liverpool ponder over how much involvement Torres, Johnson and Aquillani will have we are sweating on the fitness of N’Zogbia and Scharner. With kindest of winds only one of those would get anywhere near a Liverpool squad (and no Paul, it’s not you).

But there is hope, Pompey took points off Liverpool earlier in the season and we managed a good shift down the M58. Rafa’s kind words about being wary of teams involved in a scrap might just be him playing nice for the press, but more telling are his comments about our style of play.

He reckons that Bobby is doing things the right way, but then again he would because there is a great deal of similarity in the way the two managers set their teams out. Where as Spurs came at us with a 4-4-2 and the intention to prove they could be more “robust” on the DW mud patch, chances are that Liverpool will have three in the middle of the park, wide men and one up top.

More importantly they’ll be hoping that the new pitch is up to scratch so that they can play it round us, or through us, or both.

To some extent that plays into our hands, we’ve looked better when teams have played us like that and you can expect Latics to get plenty of possession to build confidence with, the test will be what they can do with it and how they handle the equally significant periods where Liverpool have the ball.

After the away fixture, NRP compared the slow build up of Latics with the home team’s ability to switch pace efficiently and incisively. That was what made the difference on the night, well that and our defence’s unairing ability to concede soft goals, oh and our attack’s ability to not make the most of what they get.

Recent weeks suggest that we won’t get more of the same tonight, but who knows? Latics still have the aura of unpredictability about them as we’ve shown, at least in part, against Stoke, Everton and Birmingham recently. If we can pull some of that together across 90 minutes and get a bit of luck, a goal off Jason Scotland’s backside with a side order of red card and penalty then perhaps we can start Tuesday with a wry grin.

Yeah, I know, who am I trying to kid, right?

I swear I've seen this penalty more than a hundred times...

Having suffered from laryngitis for the majority of the week, I was in dire need of something to cheer me up this weekend. Seeing Everton beat Hull 5-1 yesterday went some way to achieving this, though you can’t really fill the hollow void of not playing on a Saturday afternoon, no matter how many times you watch the Wigan 5-0 Preston VHS. Still, a Sunday evening in front of the telly is better than having no voice at all for this evening’s game, after all, how else would I express my dissatisfaction with the general quality of Premier League refereeing? Please don’t answer that.

Flicking through the available channels I stumbled across Liverpool FC TV, and a rerun of the 2005/06 Wigan-Liverpool game at the JJB Stadium. Retro Wigan game reruns? On the telly? Wow, the world really has gone mad. It’s interesting to note that numerous fans constantly compare that season, our first in the Premier League, with the current campaign. I’m not going to get sucked into the finer points of that argument, but I will say the following: we weren’t very good. At least not compared to now.

Maybe it was the way the footage was edited (I could have sworn they cut out about ten Andreas Johansson chances) but I compare that side with our current team and yes, there were some good players in 06, but from the one half of football I saw, there was no real firepower up front: the Ellington/Roberts partnership had been split and the likes of Reto Ziegler were struggling to step into their boots.

Yet we managed to only lose 1-0, and were it not for a little more good fortune it could well have been a draw. These were the European Champions; Gerrard, Morientes, Fowler et al up against the might of the Henchoz-De Zeeuw back line… and they only just beat us. Imagine if they had only drawn against Little Wigan… the results would be unthinkable.

The DW Stadium West Stand, this evening

Cast your mind back to 2007/08 at the JJB: the result was similar, only with Wigan having more of the game than any previous occasion. This season-by-season improvement came to a head last campaign when Latics actually managed to grab a point in the same fixture… as I said, unthinkable. In Wigan, Liverpool’s potency is never quite the same, and even with a Latics squad in the midsts of a bad run of form, it’s not like they’ll be playing in front of 25,000 Scousers… or will they?

So those who say we have no chance could well be right, but think about this: for all their quality and European experience, there is always the chance they could muck up. You only have to think back as far as Wigan 3-1 Chelsea or even Man United’s scrappy win over Wolves this weekend for evidence that the ‘big four’ have the odd bad day, even when they’re supposedly in the form of their lives.

And let’s not completely rule out the possibility Wigan will turn up and give Liverpool a good run for their money. By Jove do we need to start turning in the results sooner rather than later – forget performances, we’ve had plenty of those already – just stick that ball in the back of the net and think about the long-term technical stuff later. We’ve got a league to stay in here.

In all seriousness, there may be an opportunity for a point this evening. However, I’d probably trade that in for a win over Bolton on Saturday – draws won’t keep us up, but wins certainly might.

Whilst I can’t go that far, I can take you through the five subjects that will enable you to walk up to any ‘tic tomorrow night and start to build bridges, go for it.

Pitching In
There’s not been quite as much fuss made over this as you might expect.  It could be down to the club not wanting to draw attention to just how bad the last one had got this time around, it could be because they’re all sat there fingers crossed and hoping that the new one holds together, or it could just be that they’ve come to accept that we’ll need a new pitch every year or two, so it’s best to keep a lid on it.

Whilst Latics games are usually an excuse for the press to play cliché bingo with you, tonight gives you the chance to start your own game.  If you want to play honestly make sure you get methane, The Dougy, The Gant, MARSH Green and “it’s all up hill from here” in.  If you want to play lazily then just blame it on the rugby.

It’s a must, must, must, must win
For students of the site, that’s one more than last time around, but this time it’s delivered with twice the irony.  Of course it’s ridiculous to suggest, just now, that we need to beat a side like Liverpool, we’ll save that one for Stamford Bridge in May, but it would be absolutely ‘boss’ if we did.  Another week has gone by without Latics slipping into the bottom three and the right result tomorrow guarantees that the trip to Horwich next weekend will a big one for both teams.

And that’s the big danger.  I keep saying that no one down the bottom wants to grasp the nettle, but Bolton and West Ham are trying to sneak off, whilst we’re standing still and it would be good to get some kind of impetus out of this game, no matter how unlikely it seems.  We might be stupid to call it a must win game but must perform?  Definitely.

Jamie Buggers
It seems a strange time to do it, but Carra seems to be hawking himself about ready for next season.  It seems strange that, after giving so much, his time at Liverpool may be on the wane, especially seeing as we’d probably cut off our collective right arm for someone like him.  He’s a leader by example and by motivation, someone who obviously cares about his side, about winning and about not conceding goals.

I’d take Carragher at the DW any day of the week.  In fact during the first half of the season, when Latics were desperate for someone to grab the rest of the squad by the scruff of the neck, I’d have carried him here on my back, but in Steven Caldwell Bobby reckons we might have filled the gap a little.

“Mario is the captain, in a different way. He won’t tell people off, he won’t shout, he leads by his own actions and example. But Gary Caldwell he tells you. You made that mistake, you had better get back to your level, and all of a sudden you get a reaction. You have a team caring about the next action and that is all it is…

…When we were in the game and controlling things we were okay, but the moment that we went 1-0 down, nobody would take responsibility and say ‘Oi, we had better wake up here.’ We had no leadership and Gary has changed that a lot.”

Crowded out
I’ve no idea what the crowd might be tonight, but I feel safe in predicting it won’t be the biggest that we’ve had against the scousers.  Of course a lot of that is due to the ennui sweeping through WN5, but I even reckon that we won’t have as many interlopers in our end.  Yes it’s the season where football finally started to realise that us fans aren’t bottomless pits (if by football you read Latics, Blackburn and a couple of others) but most of all the game is on at eight o’clock on a Monday night and that’s just about the shitest time you can have for a football game.  Oh, and it’s on tele as well.

Mac the Knife
If recent weeks are anything to go by, Latics cutting edge in this game will be, by and large, provided by a nineteen year old lad who turned down a move to Anfield a couple of years back.  Of course that’s going to bring whispers of incredulity from all quarters but look what that decision has done for him.

After all what would you prefer, sitting in the reserves at Liverpool waiting for your contract to run out so you can find someone who’ll give you your chance or actually doing it?  In other words, who would you rather be, James McCarthy or Scott Sinclair?

See you at eight boys and girls, until then…

Here’s some easy listening
and some mumbled thoughts

For the benefit of any visitors who might remember Peter Crouch breaking his duck at Anfield a few years back, that wasn’t the first time that we’d done some down on their heels club or player a lift up, not was it the last.

Why bring it up now?  Well, it’s about time that someone returned the favour and we might as well start asking for it in this game, especially seeing as how for the first time, someone else seems to have brought up the label that no one, outside of the DW seems that willing to stick on the blue and white stripes.  Yes, Rafa’s gone and called us a “club fighting for relegation”.

Now I assume that the strange construction of that phrase is down to a misquote or his command of the Queen’s, but it is strangely apt.  Given that none of the sides in the bottom eight or so seems particularly keen on breaking free and that Latics in particular seem bent on finding new levels of despair as the weeks go by.  Still, I’m in a glass half full mood at the moment and surely it can only be a matter of time until something goes the right way for Bobby’s boys.

If the missing ingredient at the moment really is confidence, if the players really are struggling with the pressure of their situation, then maybe this game is just what they need.  With no expectations and the pressure off it represents a chance, as the sign at Christopher Park says, for Latics to enjoy their football.

Could it be as simple as that?  Well, tell me that the last few games haven’t been typified by a lethargy, a stiffness and a feeling that somehow Latics are restricted.  I don’t buy that the results against Villa and Chelsea were sheer flukes, instead I see them as what can happen when Latics play without shackles, when they enjoy the moment and express themselves.

One of my favourite moments from the chat with Roberto on Thursday cam when he was setting me straight for suggesting that mental strength we need comes with experience.

“Sometimes this youth is better than any sort of experience.

For example before we played Chelsea I told them that we are going to win today. A youngster like James McCarthy will look at you and say ‘Yes, we are going to win today.’ And a Mario Melchiot will say ‘Yeah, of course we are! I have been there seven times before and we have never beaten them so I don’t think we are going to beat them.’

Sometimes you need to use that naivety.”

Perhaps more importantly, we need to find ways of avoiding the cynicism of age and experience.  Getting rid of that voice in the back of your head that says “no chance” and letting yourself believe.  Of course it will hurt more if we fall on our faces, but why not give it a go, get some of that blind faith we keep talking about.

You know, just get behind the lads and see what happens.  If we all get in the spirit then the lads might follow suit.  If we let ourselves go then they might too.  If we let ourselves enjoy the experience of being at home, watching our boys play Liverpool then who knows what will happen.  A new attitude, a new pitch and a new result, maybe?

“We should help the players know how to play in different formations, a 4-4-2, a 4-2-3-1, 4-5-1, 3-5-2, the players should be able to switch like that, click, click, click”.  So it’s just like that, what you play is that important, or unimportant.  Bobby’s view is clear, “It is the players that make the systems work” it’s not the other way around.

But it’s also clear that he doesn’t think that he’s got the payers to play your traditional (and much vaunted on the DW concourse) 4-4-2.  “if you have a Heskey, and then you have another, you can play in a front two because those two will score goals”.  Bur of course, Latics don’t have a Heskey any more. “if you are relying on Hugo Rodallega’s physicality to hurt the defenders, that is going to be difficult”.

And there lies the key to the shape that Bobby wants his players to form.  You might think that Latics don’t have the players to play anything but the simple, ‘hide your flaws’ formation, he thinks that we don’t have a strike partnership that can, yet.  Not that he’d go out of the way to accommodate the calls of the fans if he had.

The reason?  “Four, four, two is the easiest system to play against” and then “we have 4-3-3 which gives us bigger options, especially when you get those quality players in the wide areas with the ball.”  The formation he plays is aimed at “getting the best out of our players” and getting around the numerical problem of “having two strikers against four defenders”.

Bobby sees 4-4-2 as a “rigid” system over relied on when teaching English youngsters the game. It might be fine when you have two sides huffing away at each other but get a better side involved and they can’t deal with players who step out of the “straight lines and 4-4-2”.  “We should help the players know how to play in different formations, a 4-4-2, a 4-2-3-1, 4-5-1, 3-5-2, the players should be able to switch like that, click, click, click.”

So is it better to stick to what the players know?  “All the players that we have from last year, they are defenders really, and my goalkeeper.” The rest, obviously are new and have been bought to play the system they are.  “It is not the new system that the players are being asked to do something completely different. It is the opposite, we are trying to get the best out of players.”

So there you go, the simple answer is that it’s not as simple as all that but I guess anyone with any sense knew that already.  But it’s not just about the formation and tactics, you can do all that with tiddlywinks a real football manager has players to contend with and there’s a whole different article (or two) and that will have to wait until next time.

Until then…

Read the first article in this series here.

When you think of Liverpool and music are you still stuck with images of chirpy young men with bowl cuts and skinny suits?  Of course you do, because this is the land of the cliché and, well it ruins the rest of what I say if we don’t at least pretend that the Merseyside music scene ended with John and Yoko’s first protest.  In fact it’s pretty common knowledge that the scales (geddit?) have pretty much been weighted toward the other end of the East Lancs since ooh (for convenience’s sake) the early eighties.

Well now that I’ve set that up so smoothly, guess what, it’s a load of rubbish.  Mersey music didn’t end with Merseybeat and with the pending visit of Rafa’s boys at the forefront of our minds, here’s the fourth not a patch on playlist and our tribute to all that’s been good about the Scouse music scene over the last decade or three, and not a bouncy house track in sight.

Find the playlist on Spotify here or scroll down for the cover and a Youtube version.

Pressure Point – The Zutons
Love is a Wonderful Colour – The Icicle Works
Wait Until the Ice Breaks – Alterkicks
Streets of Kenny – Shack
Doledrum – The Las
Does Your Husband Know You Are On The Run? – The Rascals
Isobella – The Little Flames
I Wish I Could Have Loved You More – Candie Payne
The Story Of the Blues – The Mighty Wah!
Playgirl – Ladytron
Sailing on the Seven Seas – OMD
Everythineverythingeverything – Hot Club de Paris
Moving to New York – The Wombats
Rescue – Echo and the Bunnymen
Gimme Love – The Troubadours
Beat Generation – The Dead 60s
Jean’s Not Happening – The Pale Fountains
Reward – Teardrop Explodes
Bill McCai – The Coral
Born to Run – Frankie Goes To Hollywood

http://open.spotify.com/user/notapatchon/playlist/1dEk7V3fxypauv4VE4yisC

More information on the dinner can be found on the WASTC here.

It looks like a good night is there for all, a reasonably cheap dinner and if even if you’re not interested in Latics and are on a diet, it’s a good excuse for a drink.

Of course, things were never that confrontational, the questions never that short nor the answers that defensive.  After all we were all there “for the love of Latics” and after that introduction, delivered without a sense of obligation or irony, who wouldn’t be sold?  Certainly the “hairy blokes” of the Latics wide web (thanks Warbo!) should have left Christopher Park yesterday in no doubt that Roberto Martinez is totally focussed on the future of Wigan Athletic, not for the next eleven games, not just for Premier League survival but for years to come and for a consistent European challenge.

You might not believe it will happen or that it’s even possible, but after spending around an hour listening to him speak about Latics and football in general, you can be left in no doubt that Bobby believes that it’s a real possibility and that he has the plan to make it happen.   Not only is the confidence overwhelming, it comes without an ounce of Mourinho style ego nor any glib “Motivation for Dummies” style spiel.

The biggest story of yesterday’s gathering was always going to be that it happened, this wasn’t a huge forum controlled by an MC or a “move along” style open day, it was an open and candid gathering between eight blokes with strong feelings for Wigan Athletic.  I can imagine the cynicism bubbling out there, but this was no PR trick, this was about addressing fans’ issues, it was a brave move that could have gone horribly wrong, but didn’t.

It didn’t because of Bobby’s honesty and ability to engage others.  The people sat around the table might not have been prepared to chuck in some of the “loaded” questions that had been (at times aggressively chucked around ahead of the meeting, but they didn’t even have to think about how to rephrase them.  The manager is so obviously in touch with the fans frustrations that we could have just given him one word prompts and he would have given us the answers that you wanted.

He covered it all from the “very disappointing” reaction of players that should have been “very big for Wigan Athletic” to his view that naivety can be just as important as experience.  How being shorn of leaders in the first half of the season affected the team’s ability to react to on pitch disappointment and how his experiences in the old Third Division gave him a better grounding than a cushy top flight career might.

And he held no punches, Kapo, de Ridder and “I shouldn’t say this but…” Koumas were highlighted as let downs.  He admitted that Lee Cattermole was a key player to his plans ”the play maker” that he feels would go a long way to completing the team, but pointed out that since leaving Latics, Lee now looks like someone who “is not enjoying his football, has gone backwards”.  Agents got a poke of the stick too, but that’s hardly a surprise.

There was so much covered in that hour that it would be a waste for me to try and squeeze it in here, and there will be more to come over the next few days covering some of the topics in more detail, in the meantime there’s some excellent reading out there from the other guys around the table and I’ve given you some links at the bottom of this post.

To finish Bobby addressed the burning issue seeing as it’s National Pie Week.  He only likes Meat and Potato although he’ll partake more now he’s not playing.  Of course he says that he prefers Pooles, but I might take him a couple from the Rollin’ Pin next time around see if we can’t wean him onto something better.

A Boy From Balaguer – Mudhutsmedia
Roberto Martinez Meets the Fan Sites &
Roberto Martinez and the 4-4-2, 4-1-2-1-1 etc – Vital Wigan
Roberto Martinez Up Close and Personal – Ye Olde Tree and Crown
Roberto Break the Mould With a First Fans Site Interview – Cockney Latic
Martinez Interview in Full: Part one – Wiganer.net

Thanks to Paul from Wiganer for the pictures, Warbo for the tip off, Ed Jones for the arrangements but most of all to Bobby for the words and his time.

I’ll leave you with a plug:

The 19th of March sees the annual WASTC dinner at the DW stadium.  This year’s dinner is themed around Latics 1985 Frieght Rover Trophy victory and much of the team from that day have confirmed their attendance.

More information on the dinner can be found on the WASTC here.

It looks like a good night is there for all, a reasonably cheap dinner and if even if you’re not interested in Latics and are on a diet, it’s a good excuse for a drink.

Hang on, who’s that next on the OPTA list in Martin Tyler’s column today? It’s only Charles N’Zogbia (five times) and then Jason Scotland (three times) and then Hugo Rodallega (twice). That’s ten bloody time Latics have hit the woodwork this season. Ten times they’ve been centimetres away from hitting the back of the net.

You wouldn’t think it’s worth mentioning, but a quick perusal of that list tells you a couple of other things. Firstly, hitting the post doesn’t happen as often as you might think and secondly, it doesn’t happen to every tom, dick or Hull City. Hitting the post ten times at this stage of the season is for the likes of Liverpool, Arsenal and Tottenham not a relegation threatened teams.

Now chances have been at a premium this season and I suppose the conclusion from this stat depends on your views. Then again, I’ve never heard anyone get called crap for hitting the bar (unless it was from a yard out), so I guess you have to go with it being unlucky.

I’ve not got time to go back and find them but it’s a fair guess that they were ten shots that could have lead to goals, that could have led to wins (or at least points), three of them that could have lead to a Jason Scotland scoring spree. All of them would have given a boost to Latics’ quickly ebbing confidence.

I’m grasping at Straws, I know, but I’m a football fan, what do you expect.

The Opta carpentry list taken from the SkySports website:

SIX TIMES:
Rooney (Manchester United)

FIVE TIMES:
Gerrard (Liverpool)
N’Zogbia (Wigan Athletic)

THREE TIMES:
Arshavin (Arsenal)
Crouch (Tottenham)
Dempsey (Fulham)
Pedersen (Blackburn Rovers)
Scotland (Wigan Athletic)
Tevez (Manchester City)
van Persie (Arsenal)

TWO TIMES:
Anelka (Chelsea)
Benitez (Birmingham City)
Benni McCarthy (Blackburn, now West Ham)
Defoe (Tottenham)
Drogba (Chelsea)
Eagles (Burnley)
Fabregas (Arsenal)
Kalinic (Blackburn Rovers)
Kalou (Chelsea)
Keogh (Wolverhampton Wanderers)
Kuyt (Liverpool)
Ngog (Liverpool)
Reid (Sunderland)
Rodallega (Wigan Athletic)
Taylor (Bolton Wanderers)