Tag Archives: Billy Mckay

Sinclair to face Watford

Posted by JJ (Tony) in Player profiles and tagged with , , ,
Jerome Sinclair. Photo courtesy of Daily Telegraph.

Jerome Sinclair. Photo courtesy of Daily Telegraph.

The rumours have been circulating for days and must have been unsettling for at least a couple of members of the Wigan Athletic squad. With just nine games left in the season, Jerome Sinclair has signed for Wigan Athletic.

Sinclair is an 18 year old forward who has made one appearance in the Liverpool first team. That was in September 2012 when he came on as a substitute in a League Cup tie at West Bromwich, where coincidentally he had learned his early football under their youth academy. He was just 16 years and 6 days old at the time and holds the record of being Liverpool’s youngest-ever player.

Sinclair missed much of last season through injury, but has scored 24 goals at youth and under 21 levels this season.

Although Sinclair is highly rated at Liverpool, many Latics fans are already questioning the acquisition of such a young and inexperienced player so close to the end of the season, giving him little time to settle in with his teammates and the style of play.

Mackay had publicly stated that he was looking at the loan market for a player who could get on the end of those loose balls in the opposition penalty box. He clearly believes that the 18 year old might be that person.

In the meantime both Billy Mckay and Martyn Waghorn will surely be thinking their days at Wigan are numbered. McKay was only signed at the end of January, but has since not made a single start. Last week a seemingly crazy rumour was flying around about Waghorn going on loan to another club. Given the current developments it now remains within the realms of possibility.

Following James McClean’s tenth yellow card on Saturday he will be unavailable for the Watford game tomorrow night. Fans will have their fingers crossed that Leon Clarke will be back from injury to lead the line. The big striker adds physicality to the attack that will be needed against a strong Watford side, currently in second place.

Should Clarke not be available it is possible that Sinclair will start, assuming the paperwork of his loan move is completed in time. It is reported that he has been training with the Wigan squad today.

There remains a possibility that either Mckay or Waghorn may be involved. But Mackay has already thrown the 17 year old Liverpool winger Sheyi Ojo into his starting lineups. Is he going to repeat it with Sinclair?

Interestingly enough at 5 ft 8 in Sinclair is of a similar height as Mckay and Waghorn. Let’s hope that if he does come on at some stage in the match, the ball does not continually fly over his head as the defenders hoof the ball forwards, as has happened so often to Latics strikers this season.

Bringing in Sinclair at this stage of the season can be considered either a bold move or smacking of desperation.

Check Mackay’s comments on Sinclair by clicking here.

Maybe Mackay will have the last laugh if the young man helps Latics avoid relegation.

Getting the best out of the strike force

Posted by JJ (Tony) in Reflections and tagged with , , , , ,
Will Billy Mckay go the same way as his predecessors, Delort and Riera? Photo courtesy of BBC Sport.,

Will Billy Mckay go the same way as his predecessors, Delort and Riera?
Photo courtesy of BBC Sport.,

When the lineup was announced prior to the Leeds match on Saturday it was a sadly depressing moment. The mood had been positive and people had started to “Believe” again. But a look at the team sheet was enough to send many of us into despair. How can you keep faith in a manager who just does not seem to realize that some things just do not work?

The dampener on the proceedings was the selection of a strike force of Marc-Antoine Fortune and James McClean.

This is not to suggest that the two players do not have their merits.

Despite scoring only one league goal in 24 appearances the controversial MAF continues to get his place in the team. His holding up of the ball, commitment and willingness to sacrifice for the team make him a good team player. He has played under three managers at Wigan, all of whom have appreciated his attributes. In fact since signing in summer 2013 he has made 35 league starts and 25 appearances off the bench, scoring 5 goals.

McClean is on his way to be being voted “Player of the Season”. Fans have been impressed by his willingness to run himself into the ground for the cause, in a season when so many of his teammates have not shown that level of desire and commitment. Malky Mackay clearly believes he can become a bona fide central striker, through his speed, physicality, a powerful left foot and willingness to run at defences. As a left winger he has always been a committed team player, so often running back to help out his left full back. He is the club’s top scorer with six goals.

However, McClean has always had his critics. They will say he lacks the “trickery skills” that the best wingers possess, that he runs around like a headless chicken, not lifting his head, not providing the level of assists to be expected of an experienced Premier League practitioner. As a central striker he is too often caught offside and does not make the kind kinds of runs off the ball that are needed.

The Derry-raised forward deserves commendation for his commitment and enthusiasm to help the cause. He is the leading scorer with 6 goals this season, but as a central striker he has a lot to learn.On Saturday he was to be switched to the left flank during the course of the game.

Neither Fortune nor McClean are what might be called “natural strikers”. Those are the kinds of players who are in the right place at the right time to get the tap-ins to those balls fizzing across the box. Moreover their combined goalscoring records do not suggest they are going to do so.

The likelihood is that neither will be at the club at the end of the season. Fortune is now 33 and it would be a surprise if he were given a further contract. According to reports, McClean is one of the highest wage earners at the club (some suggest he is on £30k per week) and is likely to be released whether or not Latics stay in the Championship.

However, Latics do have other strikers. The big centre forward Leon Clarke – who has played for 14 clubs – is very much a “journeyman”. Nevertheless his physical presence has added to the forward line and his commitment has been excellent. Add to that a debut goal against Bournemouth.

Billy Mckay and Martyn Waghorn continue to be marginalized by Mackay.

Waghorn was Uwe Rosler’s first permanent signing and made a positive impact in the latter half of last season. Often played wide he nevertheless scored 5 goals in 15 appearances. Moreover he was a consummate team player, strong defensively, so often dropping back to defence to help his full back. During that period Waghorn was never a spectacular player, but one who fitted into the framework of the team, a very useful asset. Many of us expected Waghorn to continue to be one of Rosler’s mainstay players, but injury combined with the signing of new strikers pushed him out of contention. He has made just 6 starts this season, with 12 appearances as a substitute, scoring 2 goals.

Like Oriol Riera and Andy Delort who preceded him, Mckay is a proven goalscorer. He had scored 10 goals in 23 appearances for Inverness Caledonian Thistle this season, prior to joining Latics. In his two previous seasons in the SPL he scored 18 and 22 goals respectively.

Sadly it looks like Mckay is going the same way as his predecessors. The woeful treatment of Delort and Riera has continued with Mckay, albeit under a different manager. Is there a disconnect between recruiting and coaching at the club? Under Rosler good performance in training was paramount to his process of team selection. It continues with Mackay. Is Mckay not fit enough for the demands of the Championship or does he just not impress the coaching staff on the training field?

Mckay will have arrived with confidence, after banging in the goals in Scotland. But being given no starts and six appearances off the bench, his confidence will surely have already dissipated. Granted, he has failed to impress so far, but players need a run of games in the starting lineup to show their worth. Surely he must soon be given that opportunity?

Since Malky Mackay’s arrival Latics have not won a single home game, drawing two and losing eight. They have only scored 5 goals in those 10 matches at the DW Stadium.

Given his woeful record, it is a wonder that Mackay continues to be employed by the club. But it looks like he will continue at least until the end of the season.

In the meantime his coaching staff need to take a long hard look at themselves to explain how so many players with genuine talent have fallen by the wayside this season. It is their role to help players adjust, to make them into effective performers at the appropriate level.

Let’s hope that Mckay does not get consigned to the same level of mismanagement as Delort and Riera.

A lifeline for Malky? Reading 0 Wigan Athletic 1

Posted by JJ (Tony) in Match reactions and tagged with , , ,
Jason Pearce celebrates hsi goal with james Perch. Photo courtsey of Daily Mail.

Jason Pearce celebrates his goal with James Perch. Photo courtesy of Daily Mail.

‘It’s a brand new group over the last three weeks. It closes the gap. There are a lot of points to play for. It’s about personality and character and we’re beginning to show that”.

So said Malky Mackay after his team of scrappers had thrown him a lifeline, with the reemergence of Dave Whelan breathing down his neck. The beleaguered Wigan Athletic manager was delighted – not just with the 1-0 win, but with the fight that his players showed.

After seven games without a win it had looked like Latics were going to be marooned in that relegation zone, with little indication that a lifeline would appear. They are now six points behind Brighton in 21st place and the Seagulls are due to visit the DW on April 18th. Will that be a crunch match or will things have changed significantly by then?

There are now 15 games remaining. They include four away ties for Wigan against clubs hovering close to them in the relegation zone – Blackpool, Fulham, Millwall and Rotherham.

Once again Mackay did not include new striker Billy McKay in the starting lineup, the goal-shy Marco Fortune being preferred. Another hamstring injury to Leon Barnett and the departure of Liam Ridgewell led him to introduce a new central defensive pairing in the combative Harry Maguire and Jason Pearce. They are the types of uncompromising defenders that bless so many Championship clubs. At 6 ft 4 in the 21 year old Maguire is not surprisingly good in the air and he was given lots of practice last night. For once the centre of defence looked solid.

Ironically Latics’ other 6 ft 4 in central defender, Thomas Rogne, has not played in a single league game this season. Rogne might not be as physically imposing as Maguire, but he is certainly good in the air and his presence might have prevented some of the “soft” goals that Latics have given away to high crosses. One wonders what the Norwegian has done to upset the powers that be at the club. He continues to languish in the development squad

Maguire and Pearce are not going to allow burly opposition strikers to dictate play, as has been too often the case for Latics this year. One wonders if Bournemouth’s Callum Wilson would have been able to run round them in the way he did at the DW ten days prior. The test for the partnership will come when they play the more skillful teams and Latics have a home encounter with Derby County and an away game at Middlesbrough to negotiate still.

McKay was once again brought on in the second half, this time in the 81st minute. What is it at the club that has them treat their strikers this way? Fortune has his attributes and plays his part as a tireless worker. However, goal scorer he is not and never has been. However, he has already seen off the challenges of Andy Delort and Oriol Riera. Will McKay be the latest in the line of Wigan Athletic strikers who have been badly handled? He has come into the club in good goalscoring form in the SPL, as did Delort and Riera in France and Spain, so why not put him in the starting lineup?

The victory at Reading still leaves Latics a steep hill to climb. A win against Charlton at the DW on Friday night would give cause for genuine hope of avoiding relegation. Last time Latics won a game – a 2-0 win at Leeds on Boxing Day – they followed it up with an abject 1-0 home defeat by Sheffield Wednesday.

Fans will therefore be wary of building up their hopes too high for Friday. However, the win at Leeds could be described as somewhat fortuitous, with a bizarre own goal putting Latics ahead. Most Latics fans who saw last night’s match would say that the victory was well earned, despite some of the reports on national media. They hope it will be the springboard for a genuine rally.

Who knows – another win on Friday might even provide the impetus for the “Believe” motto to blossom again.

But at the same time it could be another false dawn. Let’s hope not.

 

Lots of fight, but no cohesion – Wigan Athletic 1 Bournemouth 3

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

Leon Clarke scored on his debut.

 

Playing the league leaders was never going to be easy for a Latics team so short in confidence. Wigan started well, but once Callum Wilson scored a controversial first goal for the visitors it never seemed likely that they could win it. In the end Bournemouth had too much quality for a Latics who have sold off most of their technically-able players.

Malky  Mackay has jettisoned ten players, but brought in eight new ones. He faces the challenge that helped bring down Uwe Rosler, that of bedding in new players in a struggling team. Yesterday he started with three of them – Chris Herd, Kim Bo-kyong and Leon Clarke. Two more – Sheyi Ojo and Billy Mckay – came on in the second half.

Mackay had had a difficult choice to make. If he brought in too many of his new signings he would face a lack of cohesion between players who would not know each others’ games. If he did not bring in the newbies, he would be persevering with the what remained of Rosler’s squad, players desperately low on confidence.

In the event it was a lack of cohesion that stood out yesterday, a Latics short of the kind of “team intelligence” that the visitors showed in abundance. Bournemouth played a brand of football reminiscent of Roberto Martinez’s time at Wigan. The central defenders would drop back to receive the ball, playing it calmly out of defence. All of their outfield players were comfortable on the ball. When they received it there was always someone moving in space to pass it to. They won the match without duly exerting themselves, with a crunch game at Derby coming up in midweek.

Bournemouth’s first goal was well taken by the exciting Callum Wilson, whose pace and movement was to give Leon Barnett and Liam Ridgewell a torrid afternoon. However, Wilson was clearly offside when he set off for that run. It was the kind of refereeing decision that struggling teams like Latics seem to invariably attract. Chris McCann’s loss of the ball on the edge of the penalty area soon after led to Yann Kermorgant scoring with a low shot that Ali Al-Habsi might have saved. Wilson once again evaded the centre of Latics’ defence for his second goal.

On a positive note all of the new players did enough to make them acceptable to the crowd. Clarke played the classic centre forward role and scored a headed goal. Kim worked hard for 45 minutes, showing some glimpses of skill, but was not fit enough to play for longer. Herd was gritty and tenacious in the right back role. Ojo is still only 17, but he immediately showed the silky skills that we had heard of. However, after an exciting start Bournemouth wised up to his moves and denied him space. Mckay formed a partnership with Clarke, but was well marked by a tight Cherries defence.

It will be interesting to see what kind of lineup Mackay chooses to face Nottingham Forest on Wednesday. Will he jump in at the deep end and throw in his other new players ? It will be Ridgewell’s last game before returning back to Portland, but will Mackay give Jason Pearce his first game in place of the nervy Barnett? Andrew Taylor has the crowd on his back after a series of indifferent displays and people will be keen to see if Gaetan Bong can do any better.

Sadly it looks like Emyr Huws could be out for some time after injuring his suspect ankle in training. Mackay’s resources in midfield are stretched and it is an injury that could be a major blow for Latics.

Click here for post match comments from Malky Mackay.

 

An Inverness fan’s view of Billy Mckay

Posted by JJ (Tony) in Fan Views and tagged with , , ,
Photo courtesy of BBC Sport.,

Photo courtesy of BBC Sport.,

Inverness Caledonian Thistle souces today announced  that Billy McKay is due to have a medical tomorrow in the finalisation of a move to Wigan Athletic. Can Mckay become that goalscoring striker that Latics have sought for so long?

The 27 year old Billy Mckay was born in Corby and began his football career in the Leicester City academy. Despite a good goalscoring record at youth and reserve team levels he did not make a first team appearance and joined Northampton Town at the age of 20. He was to make 74 appearances for the Cobblers, scoring 13 goals over two seasons.

In summer of 2011 Mckay went to Inverness to join Caley Thistle and play in the Scottish Premier League. In his first season he only scored 3 goals in 22 league games, but after that he got better and better. He played in all the 38 league games for the next two seasons, scoring 22 goals in 2012-13 and 18 in 2013-14. He has continued in goalscoring form this season, notching 10 in the 23 league games so far.

Mckay has made 9 appearances for Northern Ireland since making his debut in February 2013.

In order to find out more about Mckay’s time at Inverness we reached out on twitter to Lawrie (alias @Nareystoepoker). Lawrie says he actually went to watch Latics three times in the Premier league days and enjoyed each visit.

Here is over to Lawrie:

Will Billy Mckay (it’s a small ‘k’, by the way) be a success at Wigan Athletic?  That depends on how much of a step up going from the Scottish Premiership to the English Championship is.  But the Latics have signed one of the best strikers in Scottish football; Mckay has scored 59 goals in the last two and a half seasons, more than anyone else in our top flight during that period.

 I wouldn’t have said that in the summer of 2012, however.  His first season in the Highlands after joining from Northampton Town was pretty unimpressive, though not helped by an injury that wrecked his pre-season.  Once he had broken into the team, he managed just three goals in the entire campaign, and at one point went sixteen games without scoring.  The decision by manager Terry Butcher to give him a two year deal that summer was a surprise at the time, but he clearly knew something we didn’t, as 2012-13 saw him hit the goal trail spectacularly.

 The crucial difference was a dramatic increase in the quality of service he was getting.  After all, he’s only 5ft 7in, and we were playing him as a lone striker; pumping high balls up to him is no use.  Whilst his link-up play in deeper areas is decent enough, there’s no question that Mckay is at his best when he is in the final third and facing goal.  His movement off the ball is terrific, with a speed of thought matched by a rapid acceleration over 5-10 metres.  This allows him to shake off his marker, and is why, despite his size, he still manages to score with his head every so often, generally having found a gap between defenders.

 Like all but the most elite of strikers, Mckay is confidence-dependent; he is prone to dips in form which inevitably lead to droughts.  His attitude remains excellent during these periods, and his work-rate will be as high as ever, but his finishing, especially in one-on-ones, will become erratic.  He needs his manager to stick by him in these periods; he’s played in every league match for three years (which also tells you something about his durability).
 
A lot of players have left Scottish football for the English Championship in recent years; some have succeeded, but many have failed.  Will Mckay make the cut?  My worry is that the step up in quality will be too big.  Our league is full of big, lumbering centre backs that the Northern Irishman could leave for dead, but now he’ll be up against guys who are just as strong, but can match his pace; they might also be more tuned to his off-the-ball movement.  But he’s certainly earned the right to give it a shot, and he leaves Inverness with our best wishes.