Saturday Morning
Wigan are on a bad run and if we play it a lot safer near the end, unlike last week, we’ve got a really good chance of winning today. A lot of our rivals are likely to drop points this weekend and if we could get three, we’d be in a fairly comfortable position. We all know that Richardson is out, which is a blow, but as long as Ferdinand recovers I’ll approach the game with some confidence. Wigan have a lot of good players and let’s hope Zaki continues his goalless run. They also have our old friend Titus Bramble. Cisse sounded very out of sorts last week and no doubt his uncertainty about his future is on his mind, but the best way of guaranteeing both the club’s and his own future with us is to up his performance and bang in a few more goals. Djib’s cousin, Olivier Kapo, should be playing for Wigan today, and this at least might make him more competitive, and I don’t mean in the hair department. Final score: 2-1 to us.

The Game
I got the team news around 2.30 and was disappointed not to see Ferdinand’s name. Leadbitter replaced Richardson in midfield and Fulop remained in goal. For Wigan, Zaki and Kapo were on the bench. There was good news in that our Under-18’s had beaten their Mag equivalents 3-1, and it was mentioned on Century Radio that if Man City win the UEFA Cup, then eighth place would be good enough to get into Europe next season. I don’t know if it would be worth travelling half of Europe to play F.C. Schlobsk or some other team you’ve never heard of, but there could be a few laughs along the way.

From the start the gusty wind was clearly going to be a factor and high balls into the box were going to be hard to judge. Cisse created a good chance after five minutes or so but ominously his shot then nearly reached the corner-flag. Arsenal took an early lead against Blackburn and were soon followed by Hull going one-up against the Mags, which was all good for us, but ten minutes of awful defending allowed Watson to break through and score for Wigan. Afterwards Wigan seemed a lot more confident than us and Mido almost put them further ahead after more sloppy defending, but fortunately Fulop saved the day. We weren’t creating much at all upfront and our set-pieces were coming to nothing. As the half-hour approached Gary Rowell said that we’d been very poor and suggested that conceding that late goal last week had badly dented our confidence. Almost immediately Cisse had our best chance when he attacked the Wigan defence, but Kirkland saved cleanly. Then Boro went 1-0 down and it was just as well that most of our rivals were losing too. The atmosphere was flat and many fans had already headed downstairs for some refreshment when, just after a Scharner effort had gone narrowly wide for Wigan and left Ben Haim and Collins staring daggers at each other, Leadbitter equalized out of the blue slotting home a poor clearance. Unfortunately, just as I was feeling happy that we’d reached half-time on level terms after a largely poor performance N’Zogbia, who’d sounded dangerous, was allowed to run with the ball for more than fifty yards to put them back in the lead. We missed Ferdinand’s presence badly.

There were no changes after the break. Fulop made a good save from Scharner with his legs ten minutes into the half to keep us in the game, and as crisp packets swirled around the stadium things were following a similar pattern to the first half. Murphy replaced Reid just before the hour mark and we needed his battling qualities. A few minutes later Edwards came on, which was good, but he replaced Malbranque, which didn’t sound so clever as he’d sounded like one of our better performers. With twenty minutes to go Fulop made another good save, this time from a free-kick, and Zaki was warming up. He was the last player I wanted to see come on. Then Leadbitter had the ball in the net again but it was ruled out for offside. With just under fifteen minutes to go Healy replaced Ben Haim of all people, and we went three at the back. Even Collins was having a lousy game and our performance sounded full of basic errors. Three minutes of added time failed to bring a change to the score line as Wigan closed the game down effectively.

Wigan scored as many goals today as they’d managed in their previous eight games, and that says a lot. There sounded very little passion in our team and coupled with poor performances all round, with the exception of Fulop and Malbranque, we couldn’t complain about the result. Boro even equalized in the last minute to complete an afternoon of misery and with nine games left, including Man United and Chelsea, we’re really back in the relegation struggle.

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