Rosler ready for a good start to the season- Reading preview

Posted by JJ (Tony) in Match Previews and tagged with , , ,

This time last year Wigan Athletic travelled to Barnsley for the opening game of the season. The 4-0 triumph appeared to be the beginning of a successful campaign, as Latics’ class was too much for the Yorkshire side. The next match away at Bournemouth was eagerly anticipated by the fans, but was to be a damp squib, with Latics going down 1-0. Coyle’s side went on to take just 8 points from the first 6 matches.

Ten years ago Paul Jewell’s side made a much brighter start. Despite a disappointing 1-1 draw with Nottingham Forest they went on to take 14 points from their first six matches. They were to go through their first 17 league matches unbeaten and despite a slump in November and December they went on to win promotion to the Premier League.

Over the years Latics teams have tended to disappoint in the opening matches. That start in 2004 was an exception and one that Uwe Rosler would love to replicate a decade later. Rosler’s team faces home games against Reading, Blackpool and Birmingham and away at Charlton, Cardiff and Blackburn. Can they emulate the record of Jewell’s side in their first 6 matches?

Away matches at places like Cardiff and Blackburn are going to be tricky, as is the home game tomorrow with Reading. Moreover last season’s team often struggled against lower placed opposition. Rosler’s oft stated target of picking up an average of 2 points per game would seem more realistic – can Latics get those 12 points from the first 6 matches?

Reading finished 7th in the Championship last season, narrowly missing out on the playoffs. Latics’ high pressing game undid them twice last year with 2-1 result at the Madejski and a 3-0 scoreline at the DW. Manager Nigel Adkins will no doubt have done his homework for tomorrow’s match and might well resort to a long ball approach to counteract the high pressing. Over thesummer Reading lost or released a swath of senior players including former captain Jobi McAnuff, who went to Leyton Orient, and Adam Le Fondre who went to Cardiff. Adkins expects the majority of the players on the pitch and on the bench tomorrow to have graduated from the club’s academy. Reading have a category 1 academy status and play in the Professional Development League 1.

Providing there have been no further injuries following the Paderborn game, Uwe Rosler will have a strong squad available. It is anybody’s guess which of Ali Al Habsi or Scott Carson will start in goal. He is likely to go with an experienced defence of James Perch, Emmerson Boyce, Ivan Ramis and Andrew Taylor. Don Cowie and James McArthur will probably be joined by either James Tavernier or Roger Espinoza in midfield. Oriel Riera will play the target man role, with Callum McManaman and Martyn Waghorn completing the front three. Should Rosler decide to opt for a 3-5-2 formation another centre back will come in and Waghorn could take that third midfield place.

Wigan have more than enough quality to see off a young Reading side. Rosler will be keen to get the season off to a winning start.

Like us on Facebook, or follow us on twitter here.

Rosler’s promotion winning team at Wigan

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

They are the fittest team in the division and their high pressing unnerves opposition defenders into giving the ball away. They have a rock solid defence and are not averse to grinding out results. The team has genuine pace up front and that enables them to make deadly counterattacks. They are well disciplined and every player gives one hundred percent effort. They are dangerous from set pieces, with players who have the skill to curve the ball round defensive walls and score or create opportunities. Goal scoring is deemed as a collective responsibility and players in all outfield positions make a significant contribution over the course of the season.

Could this be a description of Uwe Rosler’s promotion-winning Wigan Athletic side, 2014-15?

These are early days still. Rosler’s squad building is not yet complete, with three weeks of the transfer window remaining. However, the squad already looks strong, especially in defence. Rosler will be hoping to offload the hapless Grant Holt, to reduce the wage bill and be able to bring in another central striker. In Adam Forshaw he is seeking another creative midfielder to complement Shaun Maloney. Media reports also suggest he is interested in Aston Villa winger, Alexander Tonev. More loan players are also likely to be brought in, with George Saville of Chelsea a clear target. If Rosler spends money on Forshaw and a central striker he is likely to have to offset the costs by pulling in transfer money by letting at least one of his current squad go.

Last season’s promotion push stumbled at the playoffs. By then Latics had played an awful lot of games in a short space of time. Despite their tiredness they pushed Queens Park Rangers into extra time of the second match, although in reality they had all but lost their best chance of going t through being unable to find a way past Harry Redknapp’s parked bus at the DW Stadium. That match called for a moment of magic from the likes of Shaun Maloney, Callum McManaman or Nick Powell. Powell’s game had gone off the boil after a mid-season injury and he did not get into the squad for the playoff games. McManaman had had a frustrating season, mired by niggling injuries, and Maloney had not got back to his best after a long spell out through injury.

There was little to choose between Latics and QPR last season, but it was the Londoners who went up. Lots of teams came to park their buses at the DW last season and it is likely to be the same scenario this year. However, McManaman is now approaching full fitness and is likely to terrorise Championship team defences in a way that he was infrequently able to do last season. Rosler has carefully nurtured the invaluable Maloney through the pre-season and although he has had no competitive playing time so far he might well appear on the bench against Reading.

Rosler will continue to use his preferred 4-3-3 and 3-5-2 systems, switching seamlessly between the two. Although the former appears to be his preferred system, he has a large reservoir of fine central defenders he can call on to operate with three at the back. With the 3-5-2 system players like McManaman and James McClean are pushed further inside, as second strikers alongside the centre forward. Rosler likens McClean to a ‘wild horse’, although he clearly has faith in the Irishman. It is to be hoped that Rosler can break-in the wild horse, having him lift his head and look up when going on his marauding runs. McClean and McManaman are players who can cause panic when they run at defences, particularly on the counterattack.

Rosler will be confident that his side can mount a strong challenge for promotion this year. He might not have strikers who can score 20 goals a season, but he has a very strong defence, a combative but skilful midfield and exciting forwards.

Providing his flair players stay fit, Rosler might well be a Premier League manager in 2015.

Like us on Facebook, or follow us on twitter here.

Do Latics really need Adam Forshaw?

Posted by JJ (Tony) in Reflections and tagged with , , , , , , , ,

Forshaw

Rarely can a football club get as inflamed as Brentford have done these past few days. Wigan Athletic have made bids for Adam Forshaw that Brentford just don’t seem to appreciate.

“Warburton fumes as Brentford reject second ‘unacceptable’ bid from Wigan for Forshaw” was the headline in the London 24 newspaper a couple of days ago. So what is it about Latics’ bid for the ex-Everton youth player that has touched a raw nerve at the west London club?

Forshaw is clearly a key player for the Bees in their attempts to hold their own in a higher division. A 22 year old midfield player with a degree of elegance and skill, he was named League 1 Player of the Season. With Chris McCann and Ben Watson recovering from major injuries it is going to take a matter of months before they will be fit enough to challenge for a first team place again. Moreover Shaun Maloney did not play one minute in the pre-season matches. Rosler clearly likes to have a balance of experienced and young players in his squad and would see Forshaw as a good long-term investment for the club, given his age.

Manager Mark Warburton is quoted as saying “A bid is only a bid when it’s realistic. When it comes in and unsettles a player – that’s unacceptable. There’s been a second bid which is totally unacceptable.” He left Forshaw out of a pre-season friendly at the weekend against Crystal Palace because “the bid was unsettling for the player” and “he needed to go away for a couple of days to get his head straight.”

Wigan Athletic fans know all about their top players being courted by bigger clubs who do not hide their interest in the player they seek. It does not seem so long ago that Latics were receiving derisory bids for Victor Moses, but they hung in there until Chelsea eventually came in with a more realistic figure. A similar case happened with Charles N’Zogbia, who was certainly unsettled by interest from other clubs, but eventually stayed for another year and helped keep the club in the Premier League.

In effect all clubs outside the elite handful that dominate the Premier League are selling clubs. It is unsettling for a player when a bigger club takes interest in him because he wants to improve himself professionally and big clubs pay bigger salaries.

Being Player of the Year in League 1 is a great achievement for Forshaw, but there is no guarantee that he can perform to the same level in the Championship or the Premier League. Latics will be loath to pay out a big transfer fee for a player that is of yet unproven in their tier. Reports suggest that Everton will receive a sizeable chunk of the transfer fee if Forshaw does leave, having built an agreement into the deal they made with Brentford. It is rumoured that Brentford want £6m for the player, but Wigan’s first bid was £1.5m. Somewhere between the two figures would apppear realistic, but it is doubtful that Latics would stretch that far for a midfield player, given the need to strengthen other areas in the squad.

Clearly much of the Brentford venom has been aimed at Dave Whelan. He was the one who snatched Uwe Rosler from them at a time when they were on a high, with the announcement of a new stadium coming through. This time it is the Wigan chairman again, who in their eyes is trying to poach away their brightest young player without adequate compensation. Whether it is Whelan, Rosler, Jonathan Jackson or whoever else at the club who has been making the bids is academic. In the real world opening bids tend to start on the low side and gradually build up until a consensus is reached. Whelan might be a tough negotiator, but other labels currently being attached to him are clearly unfair.

But then again, do Latics really need Forshaw?

Much depends on the injury situation. Rosler tends to play with three box-to-box midfielders. Don Cowie has been brought in from Cardiff and can be expected to adopt the role previously held by Ben Watson, as an anchorman sitting in front of the back four. James McArthur is an automatic choice. In pre-season Rosler played new signing James Tavernier in midfield and his shooting, his quality crossing of the ball and ability at set pieces makes him an attractive proposition in the long term. However, Tavernier arrived at the club as a full back and only time will tell if he will develop into a quality midfielder. Should Tavernier not become a regular in midfield, Roger Espinoza is the obvious candidate for that third position. Rosler also has a revived Fraser Fyvie, loan signing Emyr Huws and under 21 player Tim Chow as possibilities in midfield.

The media has also reported Latics’ interest in Chelsea’s George Saville, who was on loan at Brentford last season. Were they to sign both Saville and Forshaw it would be interesting to see how Brentford reacted. Many Latics fans consider that Warburton over reacted to the bid for Forshaw, when it is not unusual for a manager to go back to his previous club for a player. They will also cite Whelan’s oft stated view that should any player want to move on to higher things from Wigan, he would not stand in his way, providing the price were right.

Two questions remain. Would Latics be willing to pay £3m-£4m for an extra midfield player and one who has not proved himself at Championship level? Is Rosler seeking more midfield cover because one of his current squad might be leaving?

If there is a number one priority for adding to the squad it surely lies in the acquisition of another central striker. Would those funds be better used in that area rather than spending it on Forshaw?

Like us on Facebook, or follow us on twitter here.

The Best of James McClean [video]

Posted by JJ (Tony) in Videos and tagged with ,

With a new season less than a week away for Wigan Athletic we wanted to take a final look at some special moments from the season just passed. .

James McClean is an exciting sight when he runs at the opposition defence. He has real pace and a powerful left foot.

The video below is kindly shared with us by a talented and true Latic fanatic through YouTube and captures some of the Irishman’s best moments in the 2013-14 season.

 


Like us on Facebook, or follow us on twitter here.

The Best of James McArthur 2013-14 [video]

Posted by JJ (Tony) in Videos and tagged with ,

With a new season less than a week away for Wigan Athletic we wanted to take a final look at some special moments from the season just passed. .

James McArthur is a class act. He is admired by fans for his never-say-die spirit and during a game he covers almost every blade of grass on the pitch. He is at the epicentre of the engine room that makes the side tick. An FA Cup Final winner, James played in Roberto Martinez’ team that blew away the likes of Man U, Arsenal and Liverpool a couple of years ago. His passing game is second to none at the club.

The video below is kindly shared with us by a talented and true Latic fanatic through YouTube and captures some of the Scot’s best moments in the 2013-14 season.


Like us on Facebook, or follow us on twitter here