Category Archives: Social Media

Wigan Athletic 1 Burnley 5: Amigo and Social Media reaction

Posted by JJ (Tony) in Match reactions, Social Media and tagged with , , ,

Wigan Athletic once again showed their fighting qualities, pulling back Burnley’s two goal lead with a Will Keane penalty after 42 minutes. The visitors had been far superior in the opening half hour, their silky football contrasting with repititious long balls launched from defence by Latics.

Early in the second half Keane squandered a golden opportunity. Soon after the visitors made it 3-1 with a goal that had offside written all over it. It was a hammer blow from which Latics were never going to recover and Burnley’s superiority was emphasized with two more goals in the final minutes.

Leam Richardson chose a cautious starting line-up, opting for three at the back but with a 3-5-2 formation, rather than the usual 3-4-3. With three holding midfielders was he trying to nullify the effect of Brownhill, Cork and Cullen in Burnley’s engine room? In the event Brownhill had an excellent game, finding the freedom to score two well-taken goals. Callum Lang and Will Keane received poor service, mainly spending their energy chasing hopeful long balls or aimless punts up field.

Burnley lost many of their best players over the summer following their relegation from the Premier League. However, both Brownhill and defender Charlie Taylor were regulars in their top tier side last season and played yesterday. Burnley have spent some £13 on new acquisitions over the summer. New manager Vincent Kompany has imposed a possession-based style of play. However, their record prior to this game was W1D3L1.

Following a valiant performance at Norwich, Latics were found wanting in this encounter against another team coming down from the top tier. The gulf in class between the two teams in this game looked huge, not only in Burnley’s clinical finishing, but in the flowing football they played.

But Richardson’s teams show resilience and a good performance against West Bromwich Albion on Tuesday would not be a surprise. Wigan’s primary goal this season is to avoid relegation. Providing the manager can continue to keep up his squad’s morale they can probably accomplish that goal.

However, the long-ball style of play that helped Latics get out of League 1 is not the best approach for consolidation at this level. At some point flair players need to be nurtured and a more sophisticated style of play developed. Wigan defenders, facing an opposition press, launch “hopeful” long balls. Most teams in this division better handle the high press.

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 included:

FormbyLatic opined:

I think Leam got the starting formation completely wrong. Far too defensive and too much respect shown to the opposition. THREE strikers and TWO excellent attacking midfielders on the bench.

When he made the changes, albeit far too late, we looked a much better team. We need a big reaction on Tuesday. Today was probably the worst performance for over two years and was very, very hard to watch, not least the repeated missing of clear cut chances……

HudwiganFan commented:

To write it off as ‘Premier League vs League One’ is a bit demeaning and selling us massively short to be honest. Burnley had only won one of their first five, and that was only 1-0 against a Huddersfield team who’ve had an awful start. They’ve failed to win any of their last four and shipped 3 at home against Blackpool last week. Nowhere near good enough and I’m sure Leam and the staff will be communicating that to the players behind closed doors.

I’d rather Leam make changes than be a manager who’s too stubborn but today was a tinker too far. Five at the back and no target-man was just bizarre. We setup and started playing like we were already 4-0 down and it showed in the first 30 minutes of the game.

Leam’s loyalty to Lang and Keane is admirable – and I can see why he’d want to reward them for their contributions last season – but how many more largely anonymous performances can they put in before some others get a go? Likes of Broadhead, Wyke, Aasgaard, Fletcher (who wasn’t even in the squad again) and even Humphrys must be sat there wondering what they have to do to get a start. Zero room for sentiment at this level if we’re serious about stopping up and Lang in particular needs to be told “you’ve got to get going otherwise you won’t get a look-in.”

I’d drop them both on Tuesday, start one of Magennis or Wyke with Broadhead in there and Fletcher as an option off the bench (if fit). Need to go back to the flat back-four with Bennett back at LB because McClean is a much better attacker than defender at this level and Whatmough-Kerr-Tilt was simply took many cooks in the kitchen today. They were getting in each other’s way and you can tell they’re not used to playing all at once.

Everything that could’ve gone wrong did go wrong today. It will be fascinating to see how they respond against another ‘promotion candidate off to a slow start’ on Tuesday. Can’t just dismiss it as ‘well they’ve got lots of money and a really good squad’ or we’ll get smashed again. The type of negative mindset that Jewell used to trot out in the press before we played top 4 sides in the first couple of Prem seasons and it felt like we’d already been beaten before the games had even started.

True Believer wrote:

TBH I am not overly worried about today’s loss as it is still very early in the season and it was against one of the teams that I would imagine will not be in the bottom half of the division and therefore not a direct opponent.

I think we have to be realistic about this season and be looking to win the games against teams with a similar target as ourselves (avoiding relegation). Any points we pick up against any of the top teams should be viewed as a bonus and losses put down to experience.

JockLatic stated:

Definitely going to be knee jerk comments here. Clearly different class in attacking areas at the moment. They scored all 5 out of 6 on target. Our finishing was terrible.

At 85 minutes we had 3 times as many shots as Burnley. Aside from the 3 goals they struggled to create anything. The first goal was clearly a foul and the 3rd was miles offside and then we are chasing a 2 goal deficit wrongly.

Liam made a mistake going from 3 centre backs to 2 for the last 15 minutes as it left us wide open to the counter as we overcommitted men forward to desperately tried to get a goal back. 2 goals when we were exposed defensively numbers wise and their pace and our sloppy play allowed the scoreline to be something the game didn’t reflect. Would imagine if it was level with 15 minutes to go, Liam doesn’t make those subs and have more players back in defence.

Frustrating as people will just look at the scoreline and think we got battered for 90 minutes, which absolutely wasn’t the case.

C_McNamara added:

Always going to be days like this, even if we signed 11 new players in summer, all who are championship standard, your going to have a bad game or two at some point in a season.

I found Burnley impressive to be honest, liked the rotation in possession, Cullen moving into left back allowing Vitinho and Tella to essentially go 1v1 against Kerr and Darikwa then Gudmundsson staying wide on the other side. Roberts and Brownhill’s positioning themselves in the inside channel as well just dragged us over isolating Tilt. I don’t we will see many teams coming to us this year with this sort of setup. Shades of a City setup with arguably two different sorts of attack going on.

I did feel from our point of view, looking to turn their centre halves was a good idea. Neither were dominating however we just didn’t manage to execute it well enough bar probably the last 10/15 of the first half. Keane not taking that chance early in the 2nd half turned out to be massive in hindsight.

5 down 41 to go I suppose, review it and narrow the focus on what we didn’t do or perhaps something Burnley did well which we could evolve/adapt our system or approach

Disappointed about today however looking forward to Tuesday night now.

Stats courtesy of WhoScored.com
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Amigo and Social Media Reaction to a heavy defeat against Burnley

Posted by JJ (Tony) in Match reactions, Social Media and tagged with ,

Wigan Athletic once again showed their fighting qualities, pulling back Burnley’s two goal lead with a Will Keane penalty after 42 minutes. The visitors had been far superior in the opening half hour, their silky football contrasting with repititious long balls launched from defence by Latics.

Early in the second half Keane squandered a golden opportunity. Soon after the visitors made it 3-1 with a goal that had offside written all over it. It was a hammer blow from which Latics were never going to recover and Burnley’s superiority was emphasized with two more goals in the final minutes.

Leam Richardson chose a cautious starting line-up, opting for three at the back but with a 3-5-2 formation, rather than the usual 3-4-3. With three holding midfielders was he trying to nullify the effect of Brownhill, Cork and Cullen in Burnley’s engine room? In the event Brownhill had an excellent game, finding the freedom to score two well-taken goals. Callum Lang and Will Keane received poor service, mainly spending their energy chasing hopeful long balls or aimless punts up field.

Burnley lost many of their best players over the summer following their relegation from the Premier League. However, both Brownhill and defender Charlie Taylor were regulars in their top tier side last season and played yesterday. Burnley have spent some £13 on new acquisitions over the summer. New manager Vincent Kompany has imposed a possession-based style of play. However, their record prior to this game was W1D3L1.

Following a valiant performance at Norwich, Latics were found wanting in this encounter against another team coming down from the top tier. The gulf in class between the two teams in this game looked huge, not only in Burnley’s clinical finishing, but in the flowing football they played.

But Richardson’s teams show resilience and a good performance against West Bromwich Albion on Tuesday would not be a surprise. Wigan’s primary goal this season is to avoid relegation. Providing the manager can continue to keep up his squad’s morale they can probably accomplish that goal.

However, the long-ball style of play that helped Latics get out of League 1 is not the best approach for consolidation at this level. At some point flair players need to be nurtured and a more sophisticated style of play developed. Wigan defenders, facing an opposition press, launch “hopeful” long balls. Most teams in this division better handle the high press.

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 included:

FormbyLatic opined:

I think Leam got the starting formation completely wrong. Far too defensive and too much respect shown to the opposition. THREE strikers and TWO excellent attacking midfielders on the bench.

When he made the changes, albeit far too late, we looked a much better team. We need a big reaction on Tuesday. Today was probably the worst performance for over two years and was very, very hard to watch, not least the repeated missing of clear cut chances……

HudwiganFan commented:

To write it off as ‘Premier League vs League One’ is a bit demeaning and selling us massively short to be honest. Burnley had only won one of their first five, and that was only 1-0 against a Huddersfield team who’ve had an awful start. They’ve failed to win any of their last four and shipped 3 at home against Blackpool last week. Nowhere near good enough and I’m sure Leam and the staff will be communicating that to the players behind closed doors.

I’d rather Leam make changes than be a manager who’s too stubborn but today was a tinker too far. Five at the back and no target-man was just bizarre. We setup and started playing like we were already 4-0 down and it showed in the first 30 minutes of the game.

Leam’s loyalty to Lang and Keane is admirable – and I can see why he’d want to reward them for their contributions last season – but how many more largely anonymous performances can they put in before some others get a go? Likes of Broadhead, Wyke, Aasgaard, Fletcher (who wasn’t even in the squad again) and even Humphrys must be sat there wondering what they have to do to get a start. Zero room for sentiment at this level if we’re serious about stopping up and Lang in particular needs to be told “you’ve got to get going otherwise you won’t get a look-in.”

I’d drop them both on Tuesday, start one of Magennis or Wyke with Broadhead in there and Fletcher as an option off the bench (if fit). Need to go back to the flat back-four with Bennett back at LB because McClean is a much better attacker than defender at this level and Whatmough-Kerr-Tilt was simply took many cooks in the kitchen today. They were getting in each other’s way and you can tell they’re not used to playing all at once.

Everything that could’ve gone wrong did go wrong today. It will be fascinating to see how they respond against another ‘promotion candidate off to a slow start’ on Tuesday. Can’t just dismiss it as ‘well they’ve got lots of money and a really good squad’ or we’ll get smashed again. The type of negative mindset that Jewell used to trot out in the press before we played top 4 sides in the first couple of Prem seasons and it felt like we’d already been beaten before the games had even started.

True Believer wrote:

TBH I am not overly worried about today’s loss as it is still very early in the season and it was against one of the teams that I would imagine will not be in the bottom half of the division and therefore not a direct opponent.

I think we have to be realistic about this season and be looking to win the games against teams with a similar target as ourselves (avoiding relegation). Any points we pick up against any of the top teams should be viewed as a bonus and losses put down to experience.

JockLatic stated:

Definitely going to be knee jerk comments here. Clearly different class in attacking areas at the moment. They scored all 5 out of 6 on target. Our finishing was terrible.

At 85 minutes we had 3 times as many shots as Burnley. Aside from the 3 goals they struggled to create anything. The first goal was clearly a foul and the 3rd was miles offside and then we are chasing a 2 goal deficit wrongly.

Liam made a mistake going from 3 centre backs to 2 for the last 15 minutes as it left us wide open to the counter as we overcommitted men forward to desperately tried to get a goal back. 2 goals when we were exposed defensively numbers wise and their pace and our sloppy play allowed the scoreline to be something the game didn’t reflect. Would imagine if it was level with 15 minutes to go, Liam doesn’t make those subs and have more players back in defence.

Frustrating as people will just look at the scoreline and think we got battered for 90 minutes, which absolutely wasn’t the case.

C_McNamara added:

Always going to be days like this, even if we signed 11 new players in summer, all who are championship standard, your going to have a bad game or two at some point in a season.

I found Burnley impressive to be honest, liked the rotation in possession, Cullen moving into left back allowing Vitinho and Tella to essentially go 1v1 against Kerr and Darikwa then Gudmundsson staying wide on the other side. Roberts and Brownhill’s positioning themselves in the inside channel as well just dragged us over isolating Tilt. I don’t we will see many teams coming to us this year with this sort of setup. Shades of a City setup with arguably two different sorts of attack going on.

I did feel from our point of view, looking to turn their centre halves was a good idea. Neither were dominating however we just didn’t manage to execute it well enough bar probably the last 10/15 of the first half. Keane not taking that chance early in the 2nd half turned out to be massive in hindsight.

5 down 41 to go I suppose, review it and narrow the focus on what we didn’t do or perhaps something Burnley did well which we could evolve/adapt our system or approach

Disappointed about today however looking forward to Tuesday night now.

Stats courtesy of WhoScored.com

Amigo and Social Media reaction to a home defeat to Cambridge

Posted by JJ (Tony) in Match reactions, Social Media and tagged with , , ,

April 16, 2022: Wigan Athletic 1 Cambridge United 2

“I thought the game was the old proverbial of a game of two halves. I thought we started the game a little bit slow in possession and you’ve got to give credit to Cambridge who worked hard to create some chances in the first half. They took their chances and we weren’t as productive in the opposition half during the first half. I thought in the second half, we played with a tempo and with a really good flowing mindset that we’ve had for most of the year.”

Leam Richardson was certainly understating what happened in the first half. Latics were outplayed and the visitors were good value for their two goal lead. Wigan clawed their way back into the game in the second half and were unlucky not to equalise in the dying minutes, being defied by a superb double save by Bulgarian goalkeeper Dimitar Mitov.

Richardson had brought in Gwion Edwards and Graeme Shinnie, reverting to a 4-2-3-1 formation. Max Power was put at right back, with Tendayi Darikwa on the left.

It was a surprise that the manager had ditched the 3-4-3/3-4-1-2 system that had served so well in the past weeks. Seeing that it had not worked he reverted to three at the back at half time, with Jason Kerr bolstering the defence against the visitors’ aerial threat and Tom Pearce’s left footedness providing more balance on the left flank.

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:

Zeb2 wrote:

Credit for the opposition comes in the form of the best centre forward display I’ve seen from any visitor this season ….Ironside isn’t a 6’ 4” monster but he is as strong as a bull and knows exactly how to play the role. Our centre backs were largely powerless against him.
(V Oliver did similarly for Gillingham a couple of months ago but only for the 2nd 45 mins)

Zakky commented:

Taking everything into consideration I think we looked a very very tired team. Our movement was ponderous and our decision making was slow..
The pace at which the Rotherham game and now the MK games are being played is light years faster than our turgid display.

Jeffs right responded:

I don’t think we are tired. It’s just how we play the game. There haven’t been many games at the DW this season where we have played with pace and urgency. Generally we have been pretty boring but made up with the work rate and never say die attitude.

LoudmouthBlue wrote:

It is a little disingenuous to say it was all down to how we played without praising the way Cambridge went about their task. They hammered us with an aerial game from one of the biggest sides I have seen in a while, they won every knock down second ball from their own front two and same from their defensive clearances.

Yes LR got it wrong today and should have started as he lined up for the second half.

To all those slating Darikwa, he was our best player today, he played in front of me both halves and stopped a number of crosses coming in and got forward and linked up well in the second half until he went off, we were sat with a couple who came from Huddersfield but were Sheff Utd season ticket holders, they were there with their family, her brothers lad was one of our juniors who were introduced at half time, they were astounded when Darikwa was taken off.

Dudestalker stated:

How many games did we go unbeaten playing with a back five? Reverts to a back four, and to make matters worse played two full backs out of position. I’ll say it, he’s either f..king thick or scared of upsetting his favourites.
Eternally grateful for him sticking with us last season, and he’s done some decent things this season, but going forward not sure he’s the right man to take us to the next level. My opinion.

All that said, that starting line up and set up was nonsensical….reverting to something that has repeatedly failed already….and all driven by a single absentee ….plain daft

King _dezeeuw06 summarised:

I imagine everyone from our fan base was immediately concerned when they saw the team and change of formation. We all know this formation just means we can’t play out and hoof it to no one. We were playing one of the divisions stronger long ball teams and we know we are useless at long ball. So why are we playing to Cambridge’s strengths and our weaknesses deliberately?

I know we struggled away on a small pitch against Burton but you don’t revert to doing all the bad things that we improved since we stopped doing as a response. Talk about throwing the baby out with the bath water.

You never get anything out of Edwards. Why start him? You know in advance he’ll be subbed off after doing nothing.

Dealing with Cambridge’s aerial threat (Ironside and Smith) was what cost us at their place so why take out arguably our best defensive header in Kerr?

In this formation Keane always ends up playing too high up and we get nothing creatively out of him when he’s not linking up play the side falls down. He was too high against Burton and he was even higher tonight.

Naylor and Shinnie are too similar and in this formation drop too deep and combine that with Keane being too high you completely vacate the middle of the pitch making winning second balls and linking up attack and defence very difficult.

Power is key in key to our midfield as he runs the game so why move him out of centre mid when Darikwa is in the side to play 2 players out of position? You knew Power would almost certainly end up back in centre mid out of necessity.

Darikwa is no use at left back why is he not at right back or one of our 2 good left backs starting? It didn’t need any hindsight to know Darikwa would have to swop sides for us to get any threat from left back.

Magennis up front on his own never works, constantly long balling in at him loses it but that’s all we did.

The change of formation suited none of our players it made everything worse all over the park. The changes only suited Cambridge who probably couldn’t believe their luck at our inexplicable decision to abandon what worked on our unbeaten run and revert back to the tactics that gave us our last loss.

Richardson said he didn’t think the change in formation and tactics cost us in that first half but he is clearly just trying to deflect as his changes at half time subbing on 2 defenders to undo all his changes tells it’s own story. He has got a lot of plaudits but he deserves massive critisism for setting us up to fail today – it was just completely counter intuitive. He is always very slow to make changes, it was obvious from the first minute it wasn’t working so how it took conceding 2 goals and 45 mins to do anything about it was beggars belief. If we started with the usual wing backs we’d have probably been alright but needless and bizarre tinkering gave them a 2 goal head start and the damage was done.

Blame certainly falls on the coaching staff but a lot of the players just shirked responsibility. When we were crying out for players to get control of the centre of the pitch and show for the ball most of them went and stood up front in a big long line waiting for a long ball that none of them had a chance of winning. Only Power really tried to grab the game by the scruff of the neck and most of the other players just gave it to him and stood back and left him to try and do something on his own. I know the tactics in the first half were awful but in the second half there were a lot of bottlers unfortunately.

Tactically we were poor against Burton but I still got the train of thought, so you are disappointed and accept it as a bad night. If we played a coherent team and tactics tonight and we lost then you’d be frustrated but it happens – but no one in that ground except the coaching staff would’ve picked that starting line up. Not because everyone is super clever it’s because it was super obvious it was wrong. It’s so frustrating we’ve dropped 5 points from our 2 easiest remaining games that would’ve seen us pretty much up when so much of that is completely self inflicted.

Sheffield Wednesday and Pompey did us big favours this past week, we’ve made a mess at our end but it could’ve been much worse. 3 hard games coming up now – got to get back to playing football and getting control of the midfield or we’ll blow this golden chance.

Stats courtesy of WhoScored.com

Amigo and Social Media reaction to a home defeat to Cambridge

Posted by JJ (Tony) in Match reactions, Social Media and tagged with , , ,

April 16, 2022: Wigan Athletic 1 Cambridge United 2

“I thought the game was the old proverbial of a game of two halves. I thought we started the game a little bit slow in possession and you’ve got to give credit to Cambridge who worked hard to create some chances in the first half. They took their chances and we weren’t as productive in the opposition half during the first half. I thought in the second half, we played with a tempo and with a really good flowing mindset that we’ve had for most of the year.”

Leam Richardson was certainly understating what happened in the first half. Latics were outplayed and the visitors were good value for their two goal lead. Wigan clawed their way back into the game in the second half and were unlucky not to equalise in the dying minutes, being defied by a superb double save by Bulgarian goalkeeper Dimitar Mitov.

Richardson had brought in Gwion Edwards and Graeme Shinnie, reverting to a 4-2-3-1 formation. Max Power was put at right back, with Tendayi Darikwa on the left.

It was a surprise that the manager had ditched the 3-4-3/3-4-1-2 system that had served so well in the past weeks. Seeing that it had not worked he reverted to three at the back at half time, with Jason Kerr bolstering the defence against the visitors’ aerial threat and Tom Pearce’s left footedness providing more balance on the left flank.

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:

Zeb2 wrote:

Credit for the opposition comes in the form of the best centre forward display I’ve seen from any visitor this season ….Ironside isn’t a 6’ 4” monster but he is as strong as a bull and knows exactly how to play the role. Our centre backs were largely powerless against him.
(V Oliver did similarly for Gillingham a couple of months ago but only for the 2nd 45 mins)

Zakky commented:

Taking everything into consideration I think we looked a very very tired team. Our movement was ponderous and our decision making was slow..
The pace at which the Rotherham game and now the MK games are being played is light years faster than our turgid display.

Jeffs right responded:

I don’t think we are tired. It’s just how we play the game. There haven’t been many games at the DW this season where we have played with pace and urgency. Generally we have been pretty boring but made up with the work rate and never say die attitude.

LoudmouthBlue wrote:

It is a little disingenuous to say it was all down to how we played without praising the way Cambridge went about their task. They hammered us with an aerial game from one of the biggest sides I have seen in a while, they won every knock down second ball from their own front two and same from their defensive clearances.

Yes LR got it wrong today and should have started as he lined up for the second half.

To all those slating Darikwa, he was our best player today, he played in front of me both halves and stopped a number of crosses coming in and got forward and linked up well in the second half until he went off, we were sat with a couple who came from Huddersfield but were Sheff Utd season ticket holders, they were there with their family, her brothers lad was one of our juniors who were introduced at half time, they were astounded when Darikwa was taken off.

Dudestalker stated:

How many games did we go unbeaten playing with a back five? Reverts to a back four, and to make matters worse played two full backs out of position. I’ll say it, he’s either f..king thick or scared of upsetting his favourites.
Eternally grateful for him sticking with us last season, and he’s done some decent things this season, but going forward not sure he’s the right man to take us to the next level. My opinion.

All that said, that starting line up and set up was nonsensical….reverting to something that has repeatedly failed already….and all driven by a single absentee ….plain daft

King _dezeeuw06 summarised:

I imagine everyone from our fan base was immediately concerned when they saw the team and change of formation. We all know this formation just means we can’t play out and hoof it to no one. We were playing one of the divisions stronger long ball teams and we know we are useless at long ball. So why are we playing to Cambridge’s strengths and our weaknesses deliberately?

I know we struggled away on a small pitch against Burton but you don’t revert to doing all the bad things that we improved since we stopped doing as a response. Talk about throwing the baby out with the bath water.

You never get anything out of Edwards. Why start him? You know in advance he’ll be subbed off after doing nothing.

Dealing with Cambridge’s aerial threat (Ironside and Smith) was what cost us at their place so why take out arguably our best defensive header in Kerr?

In this formation Keane always ends up playing too high up and we get nothing creatively out of him when he’s not linking up play the side falls down. He was too high against Burton and he was even higher tonight.

Naylor and Shinnie are too similar and in this formation drop too deep and combine that with Keane being too high you completely vacate the middle of the pitch making winning second balls and linking up attack and defence very difficult.

Power is key in key to our midfield as he runs the game so why move him out of centre mid when Darikwa is in the side to play 2 players out of position? You knew Power would almost certainly end up back in centre mid out of necessity.

Darikwa is no use at left back why is he not at right back or one of our 2 good left backs starting? It didn’t need any hindsight to know Darikwa would have to swop sides for us to get any threat from left back.

Magennis up front on his own never works, constantly long balling in at him loses it but that’s all we did.

The change of formation suited none of our players it made everything worse all over the park. The changes only suited Cambridge who probably couldn’t believe their luck at our inexplicable decision to abandon what worked on our unbeaten run and revert back to the tactics that gave us our last loss.

Richardson said he didn’t think the change in formation and tactics cost us in that first half but he is clearly just trying to deflect as his changes at half time subbing on 2 defenders to undo all his changes tells it’s own story. He has got a lot of plaudits but he deserves massive critisism for setting us up to fail today – it was just completely counter intuitive. He is always very slow to make changes, it was obvious from the first minute it wasn’t working so how it took conceding 2 goals and 45 mins to do anything about it was beggars belief. If we started with the usual wing backs we’d have probably been alright but needless and bizarre tinkering gave them a 2 goal head start and the damage was done.

Blame certainly falls on the coaching staff but a lot of the players just shirked responsibility. When we were crying out for players to get control of the centre of the pitch and show for the ball most of them went and stood up front in a big long line waiting for a long ball that none of them had a chance of winning. Only Power really tried to grab the game by the scruff of the neck and most of the other players just gave it to him and stood back and left him to try and do something on his own. I know the tactics in the first half were awful but in the second half there were a lot of bottlers unfortunately.

Tactically we were poor against Burton but I still got the train of thought, so you are disappointed and accept it as a bad night. If we played a coherent team and tactics tonight and we lost then you’d be frustrated but it happens – but no one in that ground except the coaching staff would’ve picked that starting line up. Not because everyone is super clever it’s because it was super obvious it was wrong. It’s so frustrating we’ve dropped 5 points from our 2 easiest remaining games that would’ve seen us pretty much up when so much of that is completely self inflicted.

Sheffield Wednesday and Pompey did us big favours this past week, we’ve made a mess at our end but it could’ve been much worse. 3 hard games coming up now – got to get back to playing football and getting control of the midfield or we’ll blow this golden chance.

Stats courtesy of WhoScored.com

Amigo and Social Media reaction to an exciting comeback at Wycombe

Posted by JJ (Tony) in Match reactions, Social Media and tagged with , , , ,

February 22, 2022: Wycombe Wanderers 1 Wigan Athletic 3

“The first half wasn’t like us. We didn’t get enough second balls or hold the ball well enough. But as soon as we got the first goal, we knew we could get three which we did, and I thought the second half was a great performance. We got it wide which is always dangerous when you have pace. Gwion [Edwards] and Humps [Stephen Humphrys] coming on changed the game really as they are direct players.”

Tom Naylor’s comment summed up what happened at Wycombe. It was a classic “game of two halves”, with Latics making an exciting comeback after being a goal behind at half time.

Leam Richardson reverted to his favoured 4-2-3-1 formation with James McClean at left back and Gavin Massey on the left wing. Josh Magennis was once again in the starting lineup with Stephen Humphrys left on the bench.

Once again Latics constantly used the long ball to poor effect in the first half. But in the second period Wycombe could not cope with the football that Wigan played. There is constant debate among fans as to why Latics too often use that long ball/hoofball tactic, given the quality of the players in their squad. Not only is their football better to watch when they desist from the “hoof” but it produces better results.

Richardson brought on Humphrys and Edwards after 62 minutes, in place of the ineffective Magennis and Massey. Magennis continues to struggle in the role of target man: is it the best way to utilise him? It was a pity to see Massey pushed out on the left where he is so much less effective than on the right. Many will say that those two substitutes should have been on from the start.

 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:

King_dezeeuw06 wrote:

Useless long ball as usual to start the game just giving the ball away constantly playing in a way Ainsworth would’ve picked for us to give them the easiest possible time. After plan A gets in trouble again we switch to plan B start to try and play football we absolutely batter them and turn it around magnificently. If you took out the part of the game before we switched style that was possibly the best performance of the season – we were untouchable.

After the switch was flipped and we started to pass the ball rather than hoofing it to no one we were unlucky to not be in the lead at half time. Wycombe went from bullying us to their only touches of the ball was a clearance or a tackle. They were chasing shadows and it was a matter of time before we scored. Totally blew them away after we stopped playing into their hands and played our game that we seem bizarrely reluctant to accept we are so good at. The lads were diabolical going long and utterly immense playing football – can we stop pretending Warren Joyce like 70 yards pumps to the strikers head is remotely justifiable when we are capable of playing like that.

It wasn’t tika taka and it’s not like we were afraid to mix it up and go long on occasion – but we weren’t hoofing and hoping and were looking to try and play whenever possible. That is what loads of fans have been saying all season – it’s not reinventing the wheel or trying to learn a new style – we don’t need time or new signing, we already know how to do it and it suits the players we have – it’s just a case of starting games with those tactics.

When you stop being 1 trick and predictable the opposition can’t set up to deal with your long balls the same so ironically playing more passing football makes the long balls work better too.

But why do we only start trying to playing football after it’s gone wrong, why do we keep insisting on going long when we are woeful at it. We’ve been through this pattern so often – use plan B to try and recover from the mess made by plan A. Why can’t we just start with plan B as we are a really good at it.

The penny surely has to drop now – scrap trying to be sh.t Tony Pulis era Stoke tribute act and be the best team we can be. Let’s stop grinding out wins playing to our weaknesses and start blowing teams away playing to our strengths. When we pass the ball we are hands down the best team in the league by miles.

Richardson has built a superb team, their fitness, spirit, battle and quality are unmatched at this level but he hides it by keeping going back to long ball. He needs to show off the absolute beast he’s created by switching patently to the passing game and we’ll start smashing teams.

Hampton commented:

First half hoofball – terrible
Second half football – terrific

Got to start with the finishing 11 and associated tactics Saturday – haven’t we ?

Tree and Crown added:

We wouldn’t have won that game tonight if Magennis and Massey had stayed on!

Humphrys and Edwards offered much more, must be due a start Saturday the pair of em.

Roy Race opined:

Awesome performance that. Reminded me of earlier in the season. Apart from the first 20 mins we were by far the better team.

Should have gone in at half time in the lead and second half stepped it up a couple of gears.

Mixed it up well, went long when needed and played some neat stuff as the game was stretched.

It was the change in tempo that did it plus the fact that Humphrys won more aerial challenges in his first 5 mins than Magennis did all night.

Special mention to Edwards, was a live wire when he came on. Seems to do well as an impact sub but struggles when starting.

Up the long ball Tics!

Hindleymon summarised:

When we play football on the deck nobody gets near us.

Stats courtesy of WhoScored.com