Burnley vs Wigan 24/10/09

Fair enough that I suppose. We have played Wigan quite recently so the new ground factor that we have with some teams doesnt apply here. I do agree that £35 is a lot.....but I suppose they are making the most of being in the promised land just in case it is our only season up here.

 

i think our prices for away fans are around the same or cheaper than a lot of other places. I know you can get in cheaper elsewhere as you said but i dont really blame up for banging the prices up. I refused to pay £28 or whatever it was to get into the ground at Blackpool last season.

 

We really need the 3 points today in saying that Burnley are a really good team this season at home beating the likes off United,Everton and Sunderland...But we are more than likely to maybe get a draw...I would like all 3 points we should of had all 3 last sunday against City

Com'on you Latics!!!

 

I agree, get the most money as you can, I don't for one minute say you shouldn't but I just don't think the football warrents the price.

Obviously for the teams like the European teams such as the top 4 + Everton, Villa etc, they have fans who can replace the ones who don't want to pay that. To ensure the teams like us, Fulham etc who don't have the best support the prices should be dropped because I'm sure 2000 x 20 is more than 1000 x 30 which makes for a good atmosphere and you will make more money.

Especially in this climate fans are getting robbed left right and centre from football and I think there only numerous clubs who help the fans out. I know Blackburn used to do 'quid a kid' deal and now we are doing '3 for 30' and '£1 for a kid with a ST holder' (obviously I don't know what other clubs do).

This one will be a stream job, the first of the season but I (and I know many other Wigan fans) will stand by not paying £32 for Burnley.

 

Well done Wigan you outclassed us today you really did

Apart from the 1st five or ten mins Wigan had full control of the game. Won every 50/50 and looked dangerous whenever you got forward. Not impressed the way we just caved in and at 2-1 down it looked as though our bottles had gone. Once Wigan too the lead i expected us to show a lot more fight but it didnt happen at all. Far too many players off form for us and thats taking nothing away from Wigan at all, or maybe its just our players are not good enough for the premiership. Cant really fault any of the Wigan boys either, all good on the ball and you'd expect that with a manager like him in charge. We think we can play football we've now met RM sides two seasons on the trot and been outclassed both times.

I could sit here all night giving praise to the Wigan players one by one but im too gutted Mario Melchiot is an excellent leader though and i know he takes a lot of stick but i thought Bramble was awesome too. Hendy Thomas was solid and won everything he went in for and with Hugo Rodallega upfront always had a threat, Scotland wasnt bad either.


We had a lot of our fans bitching at the ref for awarding the Wigan players so many free kicks and dont know why. Fact is 99% of them were nailed on free kicks because half the tackles were late. Always looked a yard quicker to the ball and a hell of a lot stronger. Players like Elliott normally do OK on the ball but as ive said for yonks no good at winning it back and that goes for a lot of our midfield. Got to be honest and im not just saying it after a defeat ive said it for a while deep down i think half our side are championship standard and thats it. Caldwell at the back was pathetic today i'd give the lad from Newcastle a go. If Alexander passed the ball to one of his team mates today that involved the ball going more than 20 yards i dont recall it.

I called for Chris Eagles to be recalled to the side and thats what happened, dont think he beat his fullback once. Depends too much on knocking the ball round the fullback and running onto it but either get knocked off it because he's no strenth or the fullback just gathers it up.

Jan transfer window seems a million and one days away right now but we need to bring in some quality players who are a step up from what we have. not one of our players had a good game today and normally i would say its not through lack of effort but we just rolled over bigtime no fight, no abilty on the ball and made Wigan look a Brazil side from the 70's at time today.

Fair play to the Wigan fans who showed up today back the boys from start to finish.

Any Wigan fans worried about going down dont need to be it wont happen unless he have a massive injury list. With Bruce going and this fella taking over the way they both set up sides is totally different on how they want them to play. Maybe its just taking a little time for the manager to get his ideas across but IMO their starting to click into place.

 

I agree with all that fella, fans do get ripped off. Not sure we do the quid a kid anymore but they still sort a decent price out for kids season tickets. We paid 30 quid for the kids tickets last season and this time we both got them for FREE.

 

For me and you only need to look through other games as to what ive said we've needed to shake things up and stick a few other heads in the side and drop the likes of Alexander and give some of the younger ones into the side.

Dont think Blake has been up to much the last month either. Goal at Blackburn aside he's done next to nothing. Edgar WONT do any worse than our other centrebacks thats for sure. I thought Mears did alright when you look at other players showing today.

Wigan didnt let us settle into a passing game and they out passed us for fun. Unlike us they had players closing down all the time when we tried to turn left, right, forward, backwards they had an answer to it. At times we passed the ball 50 yards backwards because the movement wasnt there. As difficult as it is to hear i think quite a few of our players are well out of their depth at this level. Happens to plenty of sides that come up from the Championship so we're not unique on that 1.

 

Blood hell Gatti we definitely weren’t as bad as your making us out to be but it wasn’t pretty, we had plenty of chances to win the game and for the majority of the game we more than matched Wigan I thought, but I agree with you it’s time for us to make some changes.

For me I’d put Bikey back into defense in replace of Caldwell, and drop Grezza for Big Kev.

My ratings for yesterdays game:

Jensen 6 – 2 good saves but messed up big time for the first goal
Mears 6 – comfortable in defence but didn’t see him bombing forward much like his usual self
Carlisle 6 – looked solid enough winning every header he went up for but caught out of position too much, hit the crossbar too
Caldwell 5 – every time I’ve seen him play this season he just doesn’t look cut out for the Prem, drop him for Bikey
Jordan 7 – feel sorry for Jordan cause he has to do so much running for Blake’s lack of place, but he was solid today, best of our defence
Bikey 5 – opposite of his Blackburn display today, his passing was fine but he kept losing possession stupidly, he’s a centre back and a good one at that not a midfielder, put him back in his proper position Coyle and stop trying to find away to get a very poor Caldwell in the team
Alexander 4 – another shocker for Grandad, easily out muscled and beaten for pace every time, needs to be dropped for Big Kev
Eagles 6 – looked very positive and dangerous, just needs to beat his man more, should have scored in the second half to
Elliott 5 – first half I thought he was our bets player, second half I thought he was out worst, never seen someone give the ball away so much
Blake 5 – excellent assist with the goal but can’t remember him doing anything else
Fletcher 8 - I knew if Flethcer got his chance upfront instead of right wing he’d shine and he did today, looked like a proper centre forward causing Wigan all sorts of problems and got a goal to

Penny 7 – no chance with either goal but looked really comfortable, had excellent kicking
Nugent 6 – livened things up a lot when he came on

 

Eagles missed a couple of chances and and Carlisle hit the crossbar with a header. I dont think at any stage that we looked like winning the game. Wigan also had countless chances and always looked a lot more dangerous than us going forward. Our boys got brushed aside far too ofen on and off the ball and to give Fletcher a 8 rating is a joke

As good a finish as the second goal was look at the space for him to do wtf he wanted with it. 4 defenders back just covering space not one of them made a move towards the striker at all and for that Coyle has to take some of the blame. Bikey back in defence did you see how flat footed he was for Wigans 3rd goal yesterday,all Boyce did was run off the back of him and Bikey stood there with his hands in the air once the ball was in the back on the net.

I wouldnt give anymore than a 5 for either defender tbh. Mears did OK the rest complete shite. Each to their own but that wont be the last time we get hammered at home

Nugent a six LOL i think he touched the ball twice

Are you Owen Coyle because what your saying at the top sounds very much like his interview yesterday. Have a listen to it on bbc sport then listen to the Wigan managers. I know who i agree with

What were all these problems Fletcher caused Wigan, sorry im not being picky but i dont really remember him causing them problems at all

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/eng_prem/8316589.stm

 

Nugent had a lot more touches than two, and he should have done better with the chance he had, there is no doubt he livened things up in the time he was on the pitch.

Flethcer fully deserves the 8 IMO, his first touch was ace, he won the majority of the headers he went up for and scored a goal, don't know what more you can ask out of a loan striker?

And we all so how immense Bikey was against Man U, Everton etc when he was at center back, think it would only be a positive if he was moved back there and he would be a HUGE improvement over Caldwell who must be bribing Coyle to get into the team on his current run of form.

When Eagles hit the side netting it was only 1-1/1-2, so of course we had a chance to get something out of the game, just like when Clarke hit the crossbar at 3-2, if that would have gone in it would have changed the game and we could have gone on to get a point.

Think some people need a doss of reality, who would have dreamed 12 months ago that we would be 11th in the Premiership? This is also the first home game we've lost in 11 games - it's a fantastic achievement. We played 8 of the lads who got us prompted today and with the budget OC has had compared to these clubs what we've achieved is a minor miracle.

Gatti i'm starting to think you're that old git who sits behind me moaning for the entire 90 minutes even when we're winning.

(on a lighter note does anyone know the extent of the Beast's injury)

 

No trust me i dont sit there moaning about anything and never get on the players back one bit. Give them my full suport. We can waffle on all day long about the chances then come our way. We didnt tuck them away Wigan had chances and burried them and us. I';m not saying we havent done well at home either its a great record for a side like us who's just come up but if youd rather me sit there saying oh this player is premiership class and blame the ref or bad luck its not going to happen. One of the big things aswell as skill that were lacking is a couple of big strong players in the side who wont get brushed aside when on the ball or going into a tackle. I lost the number of times i saw Elliott and Alexander bounce off Wigan players yesterday. The board need to help Coyle out soon as the trasfer window opens


i sit at the back of the jimmy mc upper.

 

Agreed, think that's why he's trying Bikey in midfield but it simply isn't working. Will be glad when Chris McCann is back - you don't know what you're missing until you've missing it!

 

We started half asleep and this lead to conceeding a sloppy goal. It was terrible from all the defense and the gk, Melchiot should have dealt with the cross anyway but why did everyone watch it go past them and Kirkland being stationary on his line. Obviously we got back into it through some good possession but also a big fault from the gk (hope he is alright ) which lead to us getting a sloppy goal back. I think it was safe to say if we didn't get that goal we wouldn't have even got a point. I also think if Hugo seen he was injured before he shot then I don't think he would have. Burnley did a lot of pressing but created nothing at the end and during the first 60 minutes we was chasing the game. Robbo nearly cost us the game when taking our main threat and putting him at the back, not to mention putting that waste of space Gomez even near the pitch nevermind on it. Also I think we would have taken a more attacking approach before the game but we didn't. It was only when Boyce got his goal we seem to settle and play like we can.

Kirkland - 5 (not much to do but was at fault for the goal)

Melchiot - 5 (again not much to do but did alright, not as attacking as normal)
Bramble - 8 (positioning, concentration and seemed to win 90% of everything)
Boyce - 7 (seemed to get beat a lot by Fletcher in the air and seemed shacky but his goal did him well)
Figroll - 6 (did enough to keep the ball away)
Thomas - 7 (broke everything up as usual)
Diame - 5 (unnoticed all game)
Scharner - 6 (won most headers but his passing was shocking)
Zoggy - 6.5 (had a good game both up top and at the back, not scared to run at players but seemed to lose his man when put in defense)
Scotland - 6 (not much service but did adaquate)
Hugo - 8 (well taken goals, seemed very comfortable running at players not to mention cutting inside and trying to link play up)

Gomez - 5 (did nothing as per usual apart from one pass)
King - 4 (another pointless performance from this lazy donkey)

Wigan overall performance - 6 (very poor first half, second half improved but far from what we are capable of)

For Burnley Fletcher opposed a real threat all game and Eagles had a good game albeit against a winger (don't think he would have done so well against Figroll).

Burnley overall performance - 6.5 (good pressure but some players seemed missing such as the CM)

Overall it was a game of mistakes and no team taking it to the other, the possession of both teams to get into the final third and then crumble.

 

Wasnt Kirkland's fault for the goal imho. Looks how Melchiot got turned inside out for them to get the cross in in the first place. That shouldnt have happened.

Overall decent preformace but there is sitll much more to come.

 

Thats what the wife tells me all the time

 

The ball went across the goal at a slow speed 3 yards out and he didn't come and collect it. (I also did say that about Melchiot)

 

I thought Thomas wa excellent yesterday. We could do with somebody like him right now.

How much did Wigan pay for him btw?

 

around £800k, not bad really.

We also paid around £1m for Figueroa and the same for Palacios.

 

All decent players who can handle the premiership. Think we need to start sending some of our scouts down that way.

Cheers