Maribor 2 Wigan Athletic 1 – unlucky Latics go out with dignity

Posted by JJ (Tony) in Match Reports, Other and tagged with , , , , , ,
The Ljudskivrt Stadium in, Maribor

The Ljudskivrt Stadium in, Maribor

A controversial refereeing decision was a hammer blow for a Latics side that was back to playing good football and a goal ahead. If they could have kept their lead they would have qualified for the Round of 32, as Zulte Waregem were to lose at home to Rubin Kazan. The decision made for uneven contest and hard though Latics tried it was to prove not enough.

It is ironic that this should be the match in which the referee became the issue. Up to this point the standard of arbitrage in the Europa League games had made that of the Championship look woeful in comparison.

Latics were a goal up when a shot from the edge of the box hit Chris McCann’s arm. McCann had turned his back to the shot and the ball hit an upraised arm. It was clearly not intentional, but the Polish referee Szymon Marciniak not only gave a penalty, but also gave McCann a yellow card. Since he already had one after 25 minutes he was sent off.

In the space of a minute Latics went from euphoria to despair. They had matched the home side, playing neat possession football, going ahead with a penalty from the rejuvenated Jordi Gomez after a foul on Nick Powell in the 41st minute. Not long before the Spaniard’s superb free kick had hit the post. Then a minute later came the worst case scenario, although Carson parried Dejan Mezga’s  penalty kick on to the post the ball rebounded back to the same player who scored.

Uwe Rosler put out as positive a lineup as he could, given the resources he had.  James Perch came in at right back, Thomas Rogne in the centre of defence and Jean Beausejour at left back. James McArthur and Chris McCann were in the holding midfield roles. Callum McManaman played on the right, Roger Espinoza nominally on the left. Nick Powell was the lone centre forward, with Jordi Gomez playing in the ‘hole’ behind him

It was refreshing to see the style of football Latics played, even in the early stages. The ball was on the ground, they looked comfortable and although they did not create clear-cut chances early on they nullified the home side.

It clearly suited the ex-Martinez players, who looked a class above what they were under Owen Coyle. Gomez, Beausejour and McArthur in particular looked classy and clearly enjoying their game.

The sending off completely changed the match. Wigan brought on Ben Watson after half time to replace McCann, having to sacrifice McManaman who had looked lively on the right wing.

10 men Latics continued to play with spirit and skill but a superb strike from outside the area by Zeljko Filipovic put the hosts 2-1 up. As Wigan pushed forward Nusmir Fajic took advantage of the space available and should have added to the home team’s tally, but hit his shot wife when one on one with Carson.

From then on it was all Wigan. The Maribor penalty area was besieged, especially in the last 10 minutes of the match.

Marc-Antoine Fortune had come on for Powell after 65 minutes and he was unlucky in the closing minutes as Handanovic, at full stretch, pushed his shot away. The big keeper then saved a powerful drive from Watson.

In the end Latics could not get that equalizer and Maribor marched on to the next round.

The Good

What a pleasure it was to see Latics playing good football again. They looked like a re-energised team.

There was a clear tactical formation and each player played his part for the full 90 minutes. The distribution from defence was much better as the centre backs resisted hoofing the ball or making back passes to the goalkeeper. Instead they made short passes to midfield players who dropped back to receive.  Carson managed to minimize his habitual punts up field, instead trying to find a team mate closer by.

Playing Beausejour at left back was an attacking move. It is always going to be a gamble, given his defensive frailties. However, the Chilean effectively played as an extra attacker, helping build up moves and putting over tantalizing crosses. Having Espinoza playing on the same side meant that there was going to be some cover if the ball was lost.

Jordi Gomez was a revelation in the creative midfield role. He was tireless in his efforts and his passing was excellent. There has been a lot of conjecture as to whether Gomez can function in the high tempo style that Rosler is going to demand. This performance suggests he can make the transition.

The Bad

Latics still lack a central striker who can make a difference. Maribor were rocking in the last ten minutes, but there was just no one to put the loose balls into the net.

Player Ratings

Scott Carson: 7 – did all that was asked of him defensively, including a penalty save. Rosler has clearly spoken to him about his distribution, which was much improved.

James Perch: 6 – looked much better on the right flank than on the left.

Leon Barnett: 6 – solid in defence.

Thomas Rogne: 6 – solid and his distribution was much better.

Jean Beausejour: 8 – back in from the cold. A fine performance of attacking full back play.

James McArthur: 7 – deservedly made captain for the night. Looked like the player he was under Martinez. Substituted after 73 minutes.

Chris McCann: 6 – unlucky to be sent off.

Jordi Gomez: 8 – endured trying times under Owen Coyle, but must have impressed his new manager with an excellent performance.

Callum McManaman: 7 – although often surrounded by two or three defenders he stuck to his task and looked useful. One superb cross could have led to a goal, but the central defender got to the ball before Powell. Substituted after 45 minutes.

Nick Powell: 7 – good to see him back on form. He could well be a permanent fixture at centre forward under Rosler. Substituted after 65 minutes.

Roger Espinoza: 6- not at his best and ran the risk of being sent off after a yellow card in the first half. Nevertheless added energy to the team and put in some nice passes.

Substitutes

Ben Watson: – not at his best and almost gave away a goal with a sloppy back pass. It will be interesting to see how he adapts to the Rosler style of play.

Marc-Antoine Fortune: – desperately short of goals, with just one to his tally all season. When he has got in shots on goal the goalkeeper has made great saves, as did Handanovic in this match. Could play a role out on the flanks in the new system.

Emmerson Boyce: – came on after 73 minutes, with Perch moving to midfield.

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Evolution over revolution as Wigan welcomes Uwe Rosler

Posted by Ned in News, Reflections, Specials and tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

2013-rosler

Despite an awful run of form resulting in the club’s lowest league position in the better part of a decade, the formal unveiling of new boss Uwe Rosler at the DW Stadium earlier today appears to have injected a welcome breath of positivity at Wigan Athletic.

Flanked by chief executive Jonathan Jackson and club chairman Dave Whelan, the German hit all the right notes during an insightful half hour press conference. His approach serious and considered, Rosler did much to suggest he will embrace the groundwork set in place at the club by Roberto Martinez, while tweaking the finer details in playing style to suit his own brand of football.

He referenced a high-tempo passing and pressing game employing a 4-3-3 formation, similar in some ways to the Spaniard’s preferred system, but different in others — hinting that there would be an emphasis on pace and energy, and a commitment to pushing bodies forward in attack. Although we will have to wait and see exactly how these changes manifest themselves, the comparison between the Martinez and Rosler blueprints does not sound far off the transition Swansea underwent from Brendan Rodgers tikki-takka to Michael Laudrup’s skill-based but more direct approach.

Whelan once again commented on the hiring process, reiterating the goal of a Premier League return as soon as possible, and backing his new man to be a huge success at Wigan. When asked about specifically about Callum McManaman and James McLean, Rosler described them each as exciting, fast and direct players that would fit his system, while reserving a diplomatic word about room for improvement in McLean’s final pass. He also opined that the change in management and style, plus the fixture congestion with the club taking part in the Europa League group stages, posed huge challenges to the club earlier this season.

There was a quiet resolve and confidence about Rosler’s delivery that is already generating optimism amongst supporters on social media outlets. The hope is that he will be able to swiftly convey it to his new players and that such desire will manifest itself on the pitch in coming weeks. His description of the opportunity as a “dream” to join “such a big club” will likely please many but also felt genuine, while his long-term views and discussion of player development suggest he is in it for the long haul.

More immediately, he made it clear that next weekend’s Championship fixture against Bolton will be the priority, but that the midweek trip to Maribor was a winnable contest. It should also provide him a good chance to get to know some of the personalities in the squad as the Latics embark on their final Europa League group stage adventure as a squad.

Interestingly, the new manager spoke about having developed a relationship with Martinez since Rob Kiernan joined Brentford on loan in 2012, but confirmed that he had not consulted the Spaniard before taking the position over the weekend. In a curious twist of fate, Martinez himself was today in Wigan being honoured at Wigan’s “walk of stars” for his achievement in winning the FA Cup last season. Chairman Whelan, also being honoured at the event, was several minutes late to the press conference as a result.

All of which may have been pure coincidence, but you do get the sense that this was an appointment made with Martinez in mind. Whelan was displeased by Coyle’s rejection of the style his predecessor had spent three years implementing from the youth teams all the way up through the first team. With this appointment, the chairman has made clear his hope for a period of evolution rather than revolution at Wigan Athletic.

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Another European manager for Latics?

Posted by JJ (Tony) in Other and tagged with , , ,
Uwe Rösler. Thanks to Beesotted Brentford for photo.

Uwe Rösler.
Thanks to Beesotted Brentford for photo.

Less than 24 hours ago the bookmakers had Mike Phelan the odds-on favourite to be the new Wigan Athletic manager. Uwe Rösler is now quoted between 1/6 and 1/8 for the job.

With Latics in a downward spiral, after losing again at Leeds on Wednesday, Whelan is keen to get the new appointment finalized quickly.

Rösler has just been awarded the Sky Bet League 1 Manager of the Month for November. Brentford went unbeaten through November, with four clean sheets in five matches.

Uwe Rösler and his assistant Alan Kernaghan played together for Manchester City, during the mid 1990s. Rösler was a stylish centre forward and Kernaghan a central defender.

Originating from East Germany, Rösler played for leading clubs Lokomotiv and Chemie of Leipzig, Magdeburg and Dynamo Dresden. In 1992, at the age of 24, he went to Nurnburg in West Germany, but found the transition from east to west difficult. Rösler was unable to score in 28 appearances. The following year he went back to Dresden on loan.

Rösler’s career was to take off in 1994 when he joined Manchester City, where he made 150 appearances scoring 50 goals. He left City to go back to Germany in 1998, where he had brief spells at Kaiserslautern and Borussia Tennis Berlin. A return to England with Southampton and West Bromwich  in 2000-2002 was to be followed by a brief stay at Munich’s third club, Unterhacching.

In 2002 Rösler first moved to Norway. He went to Lillestrøm, a small town north of Oslo. His stay as a player was cut short by chest cancer, which he successfully fought.  Rosler took over as manager of Lillestrøm in 2004 and was to stay there for a couple of years before moving to the oil city of Stavanger in the south west. He stayed with local club Viking for three years before joining Molde on the west coast on a short term contract, during which he saved them from relegation.

Rösler took over at Brentford in June 2011. Last year Brentford were in third place in League 1 on the last day of the season. They needed to beat Doncaster to get automatic promotion. With the scores at 0-0 and in the 90th minute Brentford got a penalty, which they missed as the ball hit the crossbar. Doncaster immediately went to the other end to score the winning goal. Brentford were beaten in the playoff final by Yeovil.

Uwe Rösler is a fascinating character who has been through adversity and triumphed. He is well loved at Brentford, where his teams have a reputation for playing good football.

One of the greatest challenges for supporters will be to pronounce his name correctly. Uwe is pronounced ‘oover’ . The ö of Rösler is pronounced like the ur in burn.

If Whelan does appoint Rosler it will be a bold move, as it was when he appointed Roberto Martinez.

His brief would be to get Latics into the playoffs this season. Maybe he could even get them promotion?

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Five things the new man must get right

Posted by Ned in Other, Reflections and tagged with , , , , , , , , , ,

2013-who

It has been a whirlwind couple of days since the news broke that Dave Whelan had sacked Owen Coyle (sort of), and the rumour mill has been churning out names ever since.

Football certainly has both a sense of timing and humour, after the eventful week that led to Coyle losing his job also saw Rene Meluensteen accept the Fulham position and Steve McClaren supply the damage that ultimately sealed the former Bolton and Burnley manager’s fate.

There have been murmurs that Whelan regrets the short-term mentality of his latest appointment, after witnessing how little time it took Coyle to dismantle the three years of club ethos-building groundwork of his predecessor. One newspaper stretched this rumour to suggest he is specifically looking for his “next Roberto Martinez” — a young and ambitious manager with a long-term view and a twinkle in his eye. What seems more likely is the appointment of someone who, regardless of age, is thinking not just of how to get Wigan out of the Championship, but stay out of the Championship. The popular favourite at the moment is Mike Phelan — more on that here.

In the meantime, our top five recommendations for the new man:

1) No need for a revolution

Coyle could be forgiven for feeling that he was inheriting a disjointed squad after the relegation-fueled exodus at the end of last season. He acted swiftly and admirably to bring in a number of new faces, most of whom on paper, were excellent Championship signings. But it was a huge mistake to try and re-invent the club’s ethos and actively reject the work Martinez had done before him. Even if he felt the tikki-takka stuff wasn’t for him, there was simply not enough time to completely transform the way the team played, gel new signings, and obtain results. In Jordi Gomez, Ben Watson, James McArthur, Emmerson Boyce, Roger Espinoza, Callum McManaman, Jean Beausejour, and Sean Maloney before his injury, he had a set of players who performed key roles in an FA Cup winning squad. He also had Gary Caldwell, Ivan Ramis and Ali Al-Habsi to return from injury, and settled young talents Frazer Fyvie and Nouha Dicko ready to push for first team football. In the end, he rotated the squad so much that the established players at the club who knew each other and had chemistry on the pitch, were rarely in the lineup together.

If there is a concrete lesson for the new man in charge, it is to embrace the strengths the club already possesses and tweak rather than rebuild. Swansea is fantastic example when it comes to such smooth transitions, from Martinez to Paulo Sousa, to Brendan Rodgers and Michael Laudrup.

2) Get the fans back onside

Injuries or not, one got the sense that fan favourites such as Ali Al-Habsi and Sean Maloney were on their way out of the club. Add to this the limited playing time afforded to Roger Espinoza, despite repeated clamouring from the crowd to see him, and it was clear he was losing the supporters.

It would be a very good move to publicly talk up the returns of Al-Habsi and Maloney, give Espinoza a chance, and focus on getting the best out of the club’s established players such as Emmerson Boyce, James McArthur, Ben Watson, Jean Beausejour and the returning Ivan Ramis, who himself was gaining something of a cult following before that terrible knee injury at Fulham last January.

It would also be wise to praise the work of his predecessors. Coyle deserves immense credit for his work assembling a strong squad of players in a short period of time. Even more important, however, is public acknowledgement of what Martinez did, not only delivered the club’s greatest achievement, but investing hugely in the club’s long-term future. It is difficult to replace an icon, but acknowledging his work puts everyone on the same side.

3) Get the best out of Grant Holt

He was the marquee summer signing — the proven goalscorer at this, and just about every other level in English football — but it all seems to have gone wrong. An instinctive finish against Barnsley on day one promised great things, and he’s shown flashes of talent (his setup play for Marc-Antoine Fortune’s winner at Yeovil stands out), but it’s largely been frustrating for the big centre-forward, and in recent weeks, Wigan Athletic supporters. His confidence is clearly low, and he doesn’t appear fully fit after being rushed back from a knee injury several games back, but the biggest problem was tactical.

A striker who scores the vast majority of his goals from crosses was all too frequently playing with the wrong supporting cast. Beausejour — the finest crosser of the ball at the club — was rarely in the lineup at the same time. His starts seemed to coincide with matches in which Latics failed to control possession of the ball, limiting him to counter attacks for which his talents were ill-suited.

With the less-than-prolific Fortune and young, unproven Will Keane the other options in the striking department, it is clear that the new manager needs to get the best out of Holt if Wigan are to stand a chance of being promoted this season. That means providing service.

4) Fill the gaps

The other option, of course, is to spend time and money on another proven striker.

And a left-back, assuming Juan Carlos Garcia needs more time to adapt and Stephen Crainey doesn’t dramatically improve under new leadership.

If Graham Barrow’s 3-5-2 formation in yesterday’s loss against Leeds was anything to go by, neither is deemed one of the club’s best XI. If the new manager goes the same route, a backup for Boyce on the right flank will be a priority.

5) Improve away form

Another loss, this time to Leeds, means Latics have now lost five out of eight away games — the same number as Yeovil and more than Sheffield Wednesday, both in relegation places. Only Barnsley, bottom of the league, have lost more.

Think we missed one? Please leave us a comment below.

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Leeds Preview – time for Latics’ players to step forward

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

I cannot remember a time when a departing Wigan Athletic manager has been subject to such a torrent of abuse on leaving the club. Owen Coyle’s  name has been vilified from all corners of social and fan media. Few of those who supported him less than a week ago seem able or willing to stand up for him now.

So much as changed in such a short amount of time.

Coyle has been condemned for having poor team selection skills, not having a tactical plan, for playing people out of position and for the sagging of players’ energy levels during the 90 minutes.

But now Coyle has gone there are no more excuses for poor individual player performances. Now is the time for the players to step forward and show what they are capable of.

Players such as Ali Al-Habsi, Jean Beausejour, Roger Espinoza and Fraser Fyvie (still on loan at Yeovil), will surely have breathed a sigh of relief when hearing of Coyle’s departure.

The big goalkeeper is back in training now and when fully fit is sure to pose a big challenge to Scott Carson and Lee Nicholls between the posts. The two Latinos – Beausejour and Espinoza – clearly did not receive any favours from Coyle, but both have previously proven themselves to be players of Premier League quality. The classy young Fyvie was one to be nurtured for the future, rather than to be snubbed and sent off to another club.

It appears that Graham Barrow has been given temporary responsibility for the senior squad, although Sandy Stewart is still in the picture.

One of the main problems in the Coyle reign was the absence of an “identity” in terms of the way the team were to play their football.Barrow needs to stamp some kind of identity upon the team immediately, so that players know exactly what is expected of them.

Under Coyle it was too easy for players to opt out by making hopeful (or hopeless?) long passes. Now it is the time for the players show their skill and demonstrate to Leeds tomorrow night that they are a cut above their Yorkshire opposition.

It is a tall order for Barrow.

As first team coach he would surely have been involved in developing a style of play, but he might well have been overruled by Coyle or Stewart. Who knows whether his hands were tied or whether he too was part of the problem?

One thing is for sure. Not one of Latics’ players recruited by Martinez has performed at the level we expected when they dropped down a division.

Barrow knows those players and what they can do and his task will be to get them performing at their optimal level. He could do worse than have a core of Martinez players as the spine of the team, with the best of Coyle’s recruits joining them.

It is going to take some time before a new manager is appointed so Barrow needs to act fast and decisively. It is going to be interesting to see the style in which Latics play tomorrow night.

It looks like the excellent Scott Carson will come in for that fine prospect Lee Nicholls in goal. The remaining places are up for grabs.

Under Coyle Latics took one step forward and two steps back.

It is now time for this squad to reveal their true potential.

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