Wigan Athletic 2 AFC Wimbledon 3

Reckless goalkeeping knocked the stuffing out of a Wigan Athletic team that had gritted its teeth and dragged the scores level after trailing by two goals in an awful first half display. Curtis Tilt’s header had pulled one back just before the half time whistle and debutant Jamie Proctor finished clinically to equalise after 68 minutes following awful defence by the visitors. It looked like Latics could go on and win the game until the 76^th minute when Jamie Jones had a rush of blood to the head and clattered into Joe Pigott, who converted the ensuing penalty.

There were few bright spots for Latics in a mediocre game of football, but the return of Viv Solomon-Otabor was a welcome sight. Jamie Proctor had arrived on loan from Rotherham to cover the absence of Kyle Joseph who is out for the rest of the season with a back injury. Proctor is the kind of big target man centre forward that can be prevalent in the division. Like Marc-Antoine Fortune his career conversion rate has been unimpressive, but his physicality can upset defences and create opportunities for his teammates. It was good to see how he put away the goal today.

After the game Leam Richardson commented:

“The biggest disappointment for myself was how we started the game. We know what Wimbledon are, how honest they are as a team and we knew what to expect. I thought we responded okay with the goal before half time and came out in the second half the better team in the ascendency and then we don’t see it through which disappoints me.”

Let’s take a look at how fans reacted to the match through the message boards and social media. Our thanks go to the Vital Wigan – Latics Speyk Forum and Twitter for providing the media for the posts below to happen. Thanks go to all whose contributions are identified below:

Degsy1 said:

After a dismal 1st half we came back in the second and after levelling up we looked like we were good to take it !.

Let down again by a big defensive mistake !

I’m feeling so so p.ssed off this evening – if I wasn’t doing a “dry February” I’d defo get a few down my neck tonight !

Every bl..dy game I think – “this is where it turns around” …….”surely we’ll get three points ….” etc etc and each time we seem to get let down by giving silly goals away !

I think just a couple more inept performances like this and last week and we will be cut so far adrift it will take a miracle to get us back on tack !

FormbyLatic commented:

I’ve seen enough in this second half to think we have scope to improve once these players get used to playing together. We just need to knock the suicide defending on the head and continue to play with aggression. Another massively disappointing afternoon though.

Jonnysking added:

Play Evans (take your pick which one) in goal or no keeper at all and we couldn’t be much worse.
Wimbledon had four shots and three went in. Jones may be nice guy, but he is still a sh.t keeper which ever way you look at it. If a takeover does go through I can’t see anyone keeping this manager either.

Loudmouthblue opined:

It is not the job of the fans to offer alternate names, what worries me is we have not secured a loan keeper during the window and why management haven’t made it a priority.

I have been actively watching football as an adult for 47 years been a season ticket holder at WAFC for well over 30 of those years so please indulge me that while I dont always get it right with a good footballer as their style might not suit my liking, but I know a bad un when I see one especially in a keeper, I honestly cannot remember one as consistently error prone as Jones, you can put your mortgage on him giving at least one goal scoring opportunity in a game with an unforced error and that is unacceptable.

True Believer commented:

We definitely improved when VSO came on. We became more direct and the only problem was we didn’t get him involved enough. Should start him Tuesday if fit.

I am also not convinced that Callum Lang should be played wide, he has a tendency to let the ball go across his body and fails to control it then ends up fouling the defender to try to rescue the situation. Might be better as a number ten playing off Proctor.