Category Archives: Specials

Garcia ready to step in for Latics

Posted by JJ (Tony) in Other, Specials and tagged with , , , , , ,

Juan Carlos Garcia (left) ready to step in for Latics.

When Juan Carlos Garcia was signed last summer it looked like he was going to be the natural successor for Maynor Figueroa.

Like ‘Figgy’ he was an experienced Honduran international, in his mid-twenties, who had come from Honduras’ top club – Olimpia of Tegucigalpa – with the ambition of being successful in England. He was to be another in the line of Honduran footballers at Wigan following in the steps of Wilson Palacios, Hendry Thomas, Figueroa and Roger Espinoza. Garcia got himself known on a world stage in February 2013 through a spectacular goal for his country in a World Cup qualifier against the USA, assisted by Figueroa.

Like Figueroa, Garcia is a left back who can also play in the centre of defence. The left back position has been problematic for Latics this season. Stephen Crainey played there at the beginning of the season, to be replaced by James Perch. That gave Latics more defensive solidity, but Perch was limited in attacking skills, playing on his ‘wrong side’. At times Owen Coyle would draft in Jean Beausejour at left back. The arrival of Uwe Rosler saw the Chilean being used more in that position, with Crainey rotated in as a wing back when Latics played with a line of three central defenders.

After six years at Blackpool, Crainey struggled to adapt to his new playing environment in the first half of the season. Being played at wing back relieved some of the defensive pressure on him and he started to grow in confidence.

Beausejour’s preferred position is wing back. Ironically when Latics have played with three central defenders it has been, more often than not, Crainey who has been played at left wing back. Apart from the occasional game on the left wing Beausejour has been played largely at left back, not his best position.

In the last two games the left hand side of Latics defence has looked vulnerable. At Burnley it was Crainey partnering Leon Barnett on the left, then it was Beausejour against Blackpool.

Rosler might well choose to revert to a 3-5-2 formation for the remaining two league games, bringing in Rob Kiernan as an extra centre back. However, if he opts to go for a flat back four he could do worse than put in Garcia at left back.

Figueroa made 148 appearances over five seasons for Latics and has been badly missed this season at left back. However, when he first arrived in January 2008 he had to wait months before making his debut as a substitute three months later. His first start was in the last match of the 2007-08 season facing Cristiano Ronaldo.

Garcia did not have to wait quite so long, making his debut in Latics’ 5-0 League Cup debacle at Manchester City in late September. Coyle played him in a wide position in left midfield. Since then he has had some injury problems, but has overcome them, making regular appearances for the development squad.

Will Garcia get his second chance before the season ends?

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Rosler getting ready for QPR in the playoffs

Posted by JJ (Tony) in Other, Specials and tagged with , , , ,
QPR Manager Harry Redknapp will be expecting a difficult encounter

QPR manager Harry Redknapp can expect a difficult encounter with Wigan Athletic in the playoffs.

Barring major surprises, Wigan Athletic will host Queens Park Rangers on Friday, May 9th in the Championship playoffs. The return match at Loftus Road will take place the following Monday, May 12th. Both games will start at 7:45 pm.

Latics need only one win from their final three leagues matches to make certain of their playoff place. QPR are six points ahead of Wigan and are likely to finish in fourth place. Reading are three points behind, but Latics have a game in hand over the Royals and a superior goal difference. Derby are five points ahead of QPR with a far superior goal difference. They will surely pick up one point from their last two games to guarantee a third place position where they will be up against the sixth placed team, which could be one of a handful of clubs.

The past months have been a rollercoaster ride for Wigan Athletic. Since Uwe Rosler’s first game in charge away to Maribor on December 12th until the last one at Burnley, Latics played 31 matches in 129 days. During that time they lost a Europa League game and won four and drew two in the FA Cup, losing to a penalty shoot-out. In the league their record has been W13 D6 L5, giving them 45 points from 24 played, very close to Rosler’s often stated target of an average of two points per game.

Latics had suffered five consecutive defeats before Rosler’s arrival and his team has played more games since then than any other team in the four divisions. To get so close to another FA Cup Final and to be sitting in a healthy position in the playoff zone of the Championship is a testament to the remarkable effect Rosler has had on the club.

With so many matches coming up Rosler acted shrewdly in the January transfer window, offloading the misfiring Grant Holt to Aston Villa and Nouha Dicko to Wolves. In their place he brought in a handful of loan players plus another on a short term contract. He tried to transfer out the highly salaried Ivan Ramis, but neither Cardiff nor Crystal Palace were satisfied with his medical condition. Ramis has since been excellent in the centre of defence and a key player in Latics’ push for promotion. He has had further injury problems – currently out through a hamstring strain – but no recurrence of the knee injury that prevented his transfer.

The loanees have clearly played a major role since their arrival, some more than others. At this stage it looks like only one will be staying – Martyn Waghorn who has since signed a long term contract. However, the loanees will continue to have a part to play as the regular season moves into the playoffs.

Rosler will be keen to secure that playoff place on Saturday with a victory over a Blackpool side struggling against relegation. He would then be in a position to rest his key players before the playoffs start. The key triumvirate of Emmerson Boyce, James McArthur and James Perch looked jaded on Monday and Rosler needs them to be at their sharpest in the playoffs.

Wigan’s recent form has been inconsistent over recent weeks, with the highs of beating such as Manchester City contrasting with the lows of losing at home to relegation candidates like Millwall. However, it is in the playoffs that they need to peak. Were Wigan to beat Blackpool this weekend and lose their remaining two league matches it would be of little consequence. Indeed we would probably see more than a little “rotation” for those games.

Rosler will be keen to have all his key players firing on all cylinders during the playoffs.

Nick Powell has been disappointing since his return from injury, but Rosler will surely continue to keep the Manchester United player in his plans. One moment of individual brilliance from him could be sufficient to win a vital playoff game. Media hype about the young man’s future cannot be helping, let alone the uncertainty of who will be in charge at Old Trafford next season. Powell remains young and his game lacks maturity, but he could play a key role in the playoffs.

The promising return of Shaun Maloney from long-term injury and the improved form of Callum McManaman give Latics much room for optimism. Moreover Jordi Gomez has been playing the best football in his five years at the club. Latics might lack a regular goalscorer but they are strong in terms of having players with creative and attacking flair.

James McClean has had a disappointing time over recent weeks, but could still make an impact in the playoffs. When he scored two opportunist goals at Ipswich he looked sharp and confident, but since then his finishing has so often disappointed. The Irishman is clearly a confidence player who needs a run of games before the end of the regular season. His pace can threaten any defence and he can never be faulted for effort. He is a rough diamond who Rosler needs to continue to work with. It could well be that playing on the wing is not ultimately his best position. With his pace, energy and tackling ability he could well develop into a holding midfield player or full back.

The return of Roger Espinoza from a hernia operation is good news for Rosler. The German will have to ease the Honduran back in gradually, but he is the obvious partner for the admirable James McArthur in central midfield. Josh McEachran is a fine player, but has lacked fitness since his arrival and has not even been on the bench in the last two games. Rosler needs him fit for the playoffs.

Rosler will be hoping that Ramis will be back to fitness for the playoffs. He has played particularly well alongside Boyce in the centre of defence. With the two together there is not only defensive solidity, but cultured passing from the back. The German might well go for a back line of three central defenders with Leon Barnett joining them. He also has Rob Kiernan available, who has done a good job so far, but lacks the experience of playing in the high pressure atmosphere the playoffs will generate.

James Perch has become an automatic choice in Rosler’s lineups and deservedly so. Too often in his career he has had to play in a variety of positions, but under Rosler he has established himself as a right back or right wing back. Perch’s defensive work is excellent and his attacking has improved considerably over these months.

Jean Beausejour is best employed as a wing back, but has also been employed as a full back and a winger under Rosler. He remains the best alternative on the left of defence.

Rosler is blessed in the goalkeeping department with Ali Al-Habsi and Scott Carson competing for a place. Exciting young prospect Lee Nicholls will have to bide his time for the moment with those two capable and experienced ‘keepers ahead of him.

The first step towards potential success in the playoffs is to beat Blackpool on Saturday. Rosler will surely field his strongest lineup. With the playoff place secured he can then rest his key players and focus on what promise to be two tricky games against a strong QPR side.

Rosler has done so well up to this point. He has the players capable of taking Latics back to the Premier League and he has shown himself to be tactically astute.

QPR will not relish the prospect of facing Wigan Athletic in a little over two weeks’ time.

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Latics looking ready for the Premier League

Posted by JJ (Tony) in Other, Specials and tagged with , , , , ,

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A week or two back Stuart Gray, manager of Sheffield Wednesday, commented that Wigan Athletic had a Premier League squad playing in the Championship. A similar comment was later made by Brian McDermott, Leeds United supremo, although he qualified his remark by saying that it was second to Leicester’s.

Whether Leicester’s squad is any better than Wigan’s is doubtful, but neither manager mentioned Queens Park Rangers, the most expensively assembled squad in the division. According to the Daily Star,  QPR got relegated last year although their budget was higher than that of Champions League runners-up Borussia Dortmund. Their budget this year has been scaled down, but is still unrealistically high for a Championship club.

There was talk in the pre-season that Wigan Athletic were going to have a splurge in the transfer market, using money brought in from their summer sales. Many fans were disgruntled when it did not happen, with Owen Coyle paying no more than around £2m for any of the players he brought in.

With catapult payments and transfer fees coming into play the club had a financial decision to make – how best to use that money. Given the extra six matches they were due to play in the Europa League they chose to spend on building a large squad, capable of putting up a good show in Europe and competing for promotion back to the Premier League. Little did they know at the time that Latics would also end up playing six matches in the FA Cup!

In February Latics played at Cardiff in the FA Cup 5th round in a televised game. At the time the commentators remarked on how one team had so much more Premier League experience than the other. But it was Wigan Athletic they were referring to. In fact every single player in their starting lineup had previously played in the Premier League.

Similarly at the FA Cup Semi Final last weekend all the starters had that experience. Moreover  Emmerson Boyce and Scott Carson alone had amassed almost 300 starts at Premier League level.

Some might say that Latics’ cup run this year has detracted from their league form. However, on their way to knocked out through the lottery of penalties, Latics were unbeaten within normal time against four Premier League teams, including two in Champions League spots. The self confidence garnered from such experience should not be underrated.

The displays against Arsenal and Manchester City have shown that this Wigan Athletic squad is good enough to challenge not only teams in the bottom half of the Premier League, but also those at the very top.

It has been a season of highs and lows for Wigan Athletic. Moreover the sheer volume of games they have had to play has contributed to poor results against teams that they would have otherwise beaten.

Uwe Rosler has done a fantastic job in raising Latics up into the playoff zone and being within a whisker of reaching another FA Cup Final.

It could be that sheer fatigue, injuries or controversial refereeing decisions will come into play over the coming weeks. However, Rosler will be mindful of the need to grind out enough points to secure that playoff place, but at the same time making sure that his key players peak at the right time – in the playoffs themselves.

The Championship playoffs are a pressure cauldron, where the unexpected can happen. However, Rosler has at his disposal an experienced and capable squad which has proved it can compete with the elite of English football.

The German’s challenge will be to ensure that the players are not complacent over the coming weeks. Latics fans are hoping for another Wembley visit on May 24th.

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A West Ham fan’s view of Jack Collison

Posted by JJ (Tony) in Other, Specials and tagged with , , ,

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Jack Collison is Wigan Athletic’s’ latest loan signing.

In order to learn more about him we reached out to the “West Ham Till I Die” fan site. Our thanks to Sean Whetstone of that site for his contribution below:

Jack Collison joined West Ham United in 2005 as a fresh faced 17 year old after Peterborough disbanded their youth setup. West Ham Academy Director Tony Carr was impressed with him to offer him a one year scholarship.  He broke through to the first team in 2007 to face Bolton.

In June 2009 he signed a five year contract which expires this summer, during an away win at Wigan in 2009 he dislocated his kneecap while attempting to chest down a long ball and was ruled out for six weeks. To be honest he has never been the same player since that injury and has struggled with his knees for the past 5 years.

He has a special training programme and careful management to keep him match fit. In 2012 he was told told he has a similar knee injury to those that plagued Spurs captain Ledley King who retired age 31.  

Sam Allardyce was quoted as saying “He has a problem that is going to stay with him for the rest of his career. He manages it brilliantly, but there are times when he gets a lot of fluid in there and he is not available for training. It is us managing that side of it. His knee, unfortunately for Jack, is never going to be 100 per cent so he has to do a management job. It is not as drastic as, in the past, Paul McGrath or Ledley King, but it is similar. He is gutted, obviously. He is almost like the forgotten man.”  

In 2013 Collison himself commented on his knee situation saying “I’ve heard that before about my knee, I expected the comparisons to Ledley and I suppose to a certain extent it is true because I have to manage my knee, but I think loads of footballers are in that position, where you have to be very concerned about an injury.“I have to box a little bit clever and be smart with the injury, but at the moment I feel as good as I have done in two or three years and that’s encouraging.”

 In October 2013 he was loaned to AFC Bournemouth for who he played four games before returning to West Ham. He remains a fan’s favourite at West Ham and we always sing his name calling him Jacky Collison but his injury means he may not have lived up to our expectations to make him a West Ham legend from our youth ranks.

 No-one expects him to be offered a new contract in the summer and he will be available on a free transfer looking to match his £20,000 per week wages which I assume Wigan will be picking up for the remainder of the season. 

Sean Whetstone

West Ham Season Ticket Holder, Blogger and Podcaster

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“He should have done better”– striking questions at Wigan

Posted by JJ (Tony) in Other, Specials and tagged with , , , , , , , , ,
scorers

Includes league and cup games. Thanks to ESPN for the raw stats.

“He should have scored.”   “He should have done better.”

How many times have we heard comments like that coming from our television football match commentaries?

Typically it is the ‘expert’ who makes the comment, an ex-player who through his prior experience is assumed to have a grasp of the tactical and analytical side of the game.

Obviously the more shots a player has on goal, the more chance he has to score. But then again it depends on which part of the pitch the player is shooting from.

BSports tells us that, so far this season in the Premier League, Sergio Aguero leads the field in converting shots to goals, with an exceptional conversion rate of 3.43 shots per goal scored. Loic Remy (3.60) and Luis Suarez (3.83) come close behind. However, even players of the calibre of Robin Van Persie and Wayne Rooney have needed an average of more than 6 shots for each goal.

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Courtesy of differentgame

An excellent piece of research from different game reveals the average number of shots needed to score from the different areas. Their study involves more than 30,000 shots over more than three seasons in the Premier League. The diagram shows what one would expect – that it is easier to score from the green inner zone – with an average of 6 shots producing a goal.

It is much more difficult to score from the amber zone where it takes an average of 18 shots per goal. In fact the stats show that Luis Suarez has had more than double the shots of Sergio Aguero from that area. Wigan Athletic’s Arouna Kone was the most successful in the Premier League last year in terms of turning his shots into goals from the amber zone.

So far this season Latics have scored 72% of their goals within the green zone, 8% in the amber zone and 20% in the red zone. The three amber zone goals came from Jean Beausejour at Derby, Jordi Gomez at home to MK Dons and Marc-Antoine Fortune at home to Bournemouth.

Latics have scored a paltry 30 goals from 27 league games. The ratio of goals per game is actually on a par with that of last season (47 goals from 38 games), although that was against far superior opposition.

There were hopes among supporters that Dave Whelan would open up his wallet during the transfer window and sign an experienced striker with a proven goal scoring pedigree. In the event Latics let Grant Holt go on loan to Aston Villa and signed Nicky Maynard on loan.

Both Owen Coyle and Uwe Rosler have been frustrated by players not taking enough advantage of goal scoring opportunities this season. It could be argued that there have not been enough genuine chances created and this is something Rosler will be working on.

Rosler is also keen for the midfield players to support attacks by getting into the penalty box.  They really need to get into that green inner zone more often. Ben Watson scored two crackers – a header against Maribor and a shot in the recent Crystal Palace cup tie  – by doing so. Watson is the leading goalscorer from holding midfield with four goals. McArthur and Espinoza each have one scored from outside the box. McCann has one scored in the green zone.

The current shots per goal ratio up to this point in the season makes interesting reading. Of the forward players Jordi Gomez has the best record with an average of a goal every 4.8 shots (6 from 29). He is followed by Nick Powell at 7.6 (10 from 76), Marc-Antoine Fortune at 7.3 (4 from 29), Grant Holt at 14.5 (2 from 29), Callum McManaman 26.0  (1 from 26) and James McClean 52.0 (1 from 52).

The table at the top of the page gives the ratio of goals scored to the number games in which a player started for Wigan Athletic forwards over the past decade. It includes league and cup games. There are some spectacular returns there.

It is no surprise to see that wonderful scoring duo Nathan Ellington and Jason Roberts up there, with Henri Camara and Amr Zaki. Comparisons are difficult with Ellington never having played in the Premier League for Latics, Roberts only playing for one year. The Latics careers of Camara and Zaki were controversial and short-lived, but when they were playing they were the best goal scorers Latics have had in the Premier League.

Up to this point in the season Powell leads with a conversion ratio of 40% (10 from 25), followed by Gomez 35% (6 from 17), Fortune 33% (4 from 12), Holt 15% (2 from 13), McManaman 11% (2 from 19) and McClean 5% (1 from 19).

Listening to a television commentary on a Latics game we would surely hear comments such as “He should have scored” or “He should have done better.” The stats show that it is not as easy to score as some experts might think.

The stats on Gomez make interesting reading. Three of his goals have come from the red zone (including two free kicks), two from the amber zone and two from the green zone (one being a penalty). However, he tends not to shoot as much as some. Within roughly the same amount of playing time as Gomez, McClean has had almost twice as many shots.

Of Powell’s 10 goals so far, 5 were scored in cup competitions. All but one was scored within the green zone, with his goal from just outside the box against Rubin being the exception.

Many of the names in the table at the top of the page are strikers who are Wigan Athletic legends. But if Powell continues to score at his present rate his goal scoring statistics will be right up there with them by the end of the season.

With three of his four goals scored in the last five games, Fortune’s stats are looking better than they would have before. In three years  at West Bromwich his conversion rate was around 10%, although he was sometimes played in wide positions. Moreover Fortune is a good footballing centre forward – he holds the ball up well and brings others into play. He leads in assists, with four to his credit.

The stats suggest that – providing they get regular playing time, keep up their previous form and get in sufficient shots  – the trio of Gomez, Powell and Fortune are the best bet for goals in what remains of the season.

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