Tag Archives: Gary Caldwell

CALDWELL IS THE KEY

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

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This time a year ago Wigan Athletic were in the doldrums. Fans were getting frustrated and there was some strong talk passing around the electronic and social media. Latics were at rock bottom and really looked like they were going to go down. People were targeting certain players, suggesting they were not good enough for the Premier League. Among those was the captain, Gary Caldwell. By the end of the season Wigan Athletic were 7 points above the relegation zone and Gary Caldwell was voted fans player of the year. Last season Caldwell’s form was the barometer for the performance of the team. Put simply, when Caldwell played well, so did Latics.

In May 2009 Gary Caldwell was voted the Scottish League Football Writer’s Player of the Year. The Daily Mail quoted the 27 year old Caldwell as saying ‘I think I can still improve. I feel as fit as I’ve ever felt. They do say that, nearer to 30, as a centre-back the experience you’ve gained over the years can help you…..I feel I’ve got better every year and that’s what you have to do.’ Caldwell reached 30 in April of this year. His performances during that month were outstanding and helped Wigan keep their place in the Premier League.

Caldwell signed for Wigan on a four and a half year contract in January 2010. During that time his performances have ranged from the excellent to the other extreme that might be called calamitous. He is the kind of player who polarizes fans. Like him or loathe him, he is not one to be ignored. In his early days at Celtic, after arriving on a free transfer from Hibernian, he was given a hard time by a section of the Celtic crowd who said he was not “Celtic class”. He won the nickname of “Heid” and the fans would sing a song about him. It took him time to win them over. A TalkCeltic.net forum in May 2009 asked fans if they thought Caldwell was Celtic class. The responses reveal how much he won over the majority of them.

Gary Caldwell has proved that he has the determination to succeed, despite the criticism he has received at various times in his career. He is the kind of player who will put his body in the firing line. This has meant he has made some amazing blocks of goalbound shots, but then the flipside can be when the ball deflects off him and puts his goalkeeper and fellow defenders off guard. His distribution from the back is as good as that of any central defender in the Premier League. Together with Antolin Alcaraz and Maynor Figueroa they provided the defensive platform that Wigan needed to stay afloat last season. That mutual understanding between the three central defenders was of paramount importance.

Caldwell has had injury problems this year and has not been at his best. Wigan need him fit and performing to maximum capacity if they are to avoid the relegation dogfight. He is the captain who can provide the inspiration and drive to lift his team. With the return of an experienced central defensive trio we will see a major improvement in Wigan Athletic’s performances. Gary Caldwell holds the key to Wigan moving towards mid-table or sinking down into the oblivion.

WIGAN ATHLETIC-READING PREVIEW

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

  • Injury-hit Wigan Athletic face newly promoted Reading at the DW Stadium this afternoon. Wigan are currently in 16th place with 11 points from 12 games. Although they have won only one league game all season – last week at home to Everton – Reading are in 17th place, with just two points less than Wigan. A win for the visitors would allow Reading to leapfrog over Wigan, plunging Latics into the relegation zone. The phrase “must-win game” tends to be overstated in the media, but in this case it comes pretty close to describing the importance of three points to Wigan Athletic.

    Ben Watson’s broken leg must have impacted on Wigan’s performance and morale last week at Liverpool. It was so unfortunate after he had waited so long for his chance to get back into the team and had regained his form. James McArthur remains injured, so David Jones will partner James McCarthy in the centre of midfield. The injury to Gary Caldwell is a blow since it is not only his playing ability that will be missed, but his organizational skills in the centre of the back three. The most obvious option is to move Emmerson Boyce across to the central three and bring in the attacking Ronnie Stam. However, reports in the media have suggested Martinez might change the shape, which would likely mean playing with a conventional back four. This would allow him to bring in a winger, such as Ryo Miyaichi – if fit. There is some doubt over the fitness of Franco Di Santo. If he does not play the obvious replacement would be Mauro Boselli, but Jordi Gomez might jump ahead of him in the pecking order.

    In contrast, Reading have better news regarding injuries, with forward Jimmy Kebe fit again after missing the Everton game. Old Wigan favourite, Jason Roberts, now 34, will probably start for the visitors. Reading’s win last week will certainly boost them although rumours regarding manager Brian McDermott’s position are not going to help. A failure to get a result at Wigan might well push him closer to the edge. Reading play an energetic, physical type of football and Wigan can expect the crosses to be teeming in. Ex-Watford midfield player, Jobi McAnuff, made 11 assists last season when Reading won the Championship and he has already made 4 more assists this season. Their leading goalscorer is Adam Le Fondre with 3 goals.

    Critics would say that there has been a need for a shake up in the Latics lineup for some weeks. Martinez has kept stubborn faith in his first choice players, many of whom have disappointed up to this point. This time he is going to be forced into making changes because of injuries. Too many times in key relegation tussles in the past Wigan have gone into the match with a cautious team selection. Let’s hope Martinez puts on a positive lineup from the start in this match.

    Reading have not won an away game this season, drawing 2 out of their 5. Wigan have won 1 out of 6 games at home. The logical prediction would therefore be a draw. However, football does not always work like that and it could be that a soft goal, penalty decision or red card could make the difference in this encounter. Wigan are due for a little bit of luck – maybe it will come today?

    • WEST HAM UNITED v WIGAN ATHLETIC – CAPITAL ONE CUP PREVIEW

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

    In the second round of the Capital One Cup Latics destroyed Nottingham Forest through superb finishing. They fielded a mixed team, but with an experienced back three providing defensive stability. Let’s  hope the back three for tonight’s game have that  kind of experience and resolve to deal with the aerial bombardment that is to be expected.

    West Ham beat Crewe 2-0 in the last round, Nicky Maynard scoring the first goal, but refusing to celebrate against his old club.  We saw the same on Saturday with Rodallega’s goal at the DW Stadium. Let’s hope that Mohamed Diame does not appear on the scoresheet tonight to repeat that. He was most people’s man of the match in their last minute draw with Sunderland at the weekend. West Ham put out a mixed team for the encounter with Crewe. They have  a tricky London derby against QPR coming up on Monday, but still might be tempted to put on a few more first team regulars given the six day gap involved.

    What can we hope for in this difficult match? Neither Callum McMananan nor Ryo Miyaichi started in the Forest match, but both came on as substitutes against Fulham on Saturday. We can expect Mauro Boselli to start at centre forward and the attacking option would be to put the two young wingers upfront alongside him, although Albert Crusat also justifies being brought back into the fold. However, this is not the normal Martinez formation. On Saturday we went back to the lone centre forward system, with midfield players on each side. Playing the pedestrian Gomez nominally on the right wing deprived the team of pace and power. Both Gomez and Maloney are creative players but playing them together just does not seem to work.

    Antolin Alcaraz is still  unable to return from injury, so Adrian Lopez will probably replace him. More than anything else it has been the sheer physicality of the English game that has caused Lopez most problems since his move from Galicia. Tonight will provide him with another stern test if he is included in the lineup.  In the Forest game Ivan Ramis played in the most central position of the back three and looked comfortable there. Gary Caldwell was our player of the year last season, but his recent form has been  poor.  His apparent petulance after being rightly substituted on Saturday was not what one would expect from the captain who usually leads by example. His form has dipped – being outjumped by Rodallega for the opening goal on Saturday being symptomatic – so he may be given the chance to redeem himself tonight.

    David Jones is likely to appear, either as left wingback or in central midfield. We can expect Ronnie Stam to come in at right wing back. Ben Watson has looked rusty after his long layoff from first choice duty, so he might figure in central midfield. There also remains the option of testing James McArthur’s fitness and giving the young and promising Fraser Fyvie his first start .

    Whatever lineup Martinez puts out we can expect a hard and physical tussle. Sam Allardyce is not the Hammers’ fans favourite all time manager, but he has brought them back to the Premier League. For the Crewe  visit there was a crowd of over 18,000 at the Boleyn Ground, sizeable by League Cup standards. The small pitch and crowd support make West  Ham a difficult side to play away from home. Not knowing what strength of lineup each team is going to put out makes it hard to predict any kind of outcome to this encounter.  With the exception of the fine display at Forest, Wigan Athletic’s performance in cup competitions  over recent years has been infuriating. Let’s hope that whatever  the lineup the Wigan team will play with enthusiasm, style and pride.

    CONTEMPLATING LIFE WITHOUT BOB

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

    After the joy and euphoria of recent weeks we are now rocked  by Liverpool’s approach to Roberto Martinez. How can we  contemplate a Wigan Athletic without Bob? What is going to happen if he leaves us for  Liverpool in the next 7 days?

    Roberto Martinez came back as club manager in 2008, having been an old favourite of those fans who saw him play 188 matches for Latics from 1995-2001. His assistant was to be  Graeme Jones, who scored 44 goals in 96 appearances for Latics from 1996-1999. Another ex-Latics icon – Graham Barrow – was brought in as  coach. Barrow scored 35 goals in 179 appearances for Wigan Athletic from 1981-1986, not bad for a defensive midfield player. He later came back as manager in 1994-95, saving Latics from relegation to the Football Conference.  If you look at the backroom staff at the club you will find the names of other familiar names from yesteryear. Alex Cribley –  club physiotherapist – made 268 appearances for us in the 1980s and has been at the club for 30 years . We even have an executive manager, Jonathan Jackson, whose father was a great servant for the club at board level.

    That all these people with strong previous associations  with the club are on the payroll is no coincidence. It is part of a concerted effort to recruit people who love the club. Roberto Martinez has been the orchestrator, melding together his staff to provide an infrastructure for the future. The model is not unlike that of Liverpool in the 1980’s when Bob Paisley and Joe Fagan moved up from the “bootroom” staff to take over the club after the departure of Bill Shankly. It was an incredibly successful model. Paisley won 6 league titles and 3 European Cups during his 9 years as manager.

    Roberto Martinez might be offered the Liverpool job this week. If he does he might well take it. No Latics fan would begrudge him such an opportunity. Liverpool FC is not the club it was in the 1980s but its fans still often have unrealistically high expectations. Not an easy place to work, especially if John W. Henry wants instant success. Henry took over as principal owner of the Boston Red Sox baseball team in 2002. They won the coveted World Series in 2004. It is unlikely that Roberto Martinez – or any other manager – could perform a parallel feat at Liverpool FC in two years, given the squad of players currently at the club. What Martinez would do is build for the future and have the team play aesthetically pleasing football, something Liverpool have not been able to do for some time.

    If the Liverpool thing does not work out – and we Latics fans have to admit we hope it doesn’t – we will probably have Martinez for another year. The problem is that the more success Wigan Athletic have under his direction, the more likely it is that he will be poached away by another club. We therefore need to think ahead. Are there people on the “bootroom” staff who are capable of replacing him? The obvious candidate is Graeme Jones, but we seldom get a glimpse of him through the media. Does he lack eloquence or is it that Martinez is a control freak and likes to deal with the media? Eric Black was a very well-spoken assistant to Steve Bruce and we saw more of him. If Martinez did move would he take Jones with him? Graham Barrow remains a capable force within the club and might even be a candidate. After the Heysel disaster in 1985 Kenny Dalglish took over as Liverpool player-manager, going on to win three league titles. Would it be within the realms of possibility that Gary Caldwell could perform that same dual role for Latics?

    So let’s think ahead. Roberto Martinez will leave sometime, whether it be during the next week or the next year. He has built an infrastructure that we need to keep. If he were to leave he should not be allowed to take away key members of our coaching and backroom staff. The players he has recruited now know how to play the kind of champagne football we could not have dreamed about three years ago when he took over. We also have a tactical formation that really suits the players we have. We do not want a new manager to come in and put us back to square one. Let’s not revert to the physical, long-ball stuff that characterized Steve Bruce’s teams. Very few managers in England could step into this situation and build on what we already have. Only Swansea and Brighton come to mind as teams that play our style of football. Brendan Rodgers has done a great job at Swansea because he has built on the structure that Martinez provided during his time in Wales. Like Martinez he is now in the shop window, with the big clubs admiring the kind of football his team are playing. Gus Poyet has done a fantastic job in bringing Brighton to midway up the Championship playing our kind of football. He might well be a possibility for Latics.

    Let’s hope that Roberto Martinez does not go to Liverpool and stays with us at least one more year. It is an exciting prospect! If he does go then we need to make the right appointment. Let’s not bring in somebody who tears apart the coaching and backroom staff to bring in his own men. We don’t need upheaval, we need continuity. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel, we just need to keep it rolling. Let’s keep our fingers crossed.

    QUEENS PARK RANGERS 3 WIGAN ATHLETIC 1 – A SENSE OF FOREBODING

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

    An hour before any Wigan Athletic game is due to start I like to trawl along to the official club website and look for news of the team lineup. I did it last weekend and got an immediate sense of foreboding. Gohouri in for Alcaraz and only one winger in the lineup. A return to playing Jordi Gomez on the right wing? A question of pack your team with midfield players to stifle the opposition? Then maybe bring on another attack minded player later? Was this to be the way to get a good result against another struggling team?

    My sense of foreboding was to be temporarily lifted in the first few minutes with Latics going close to scoring on a couple of occasions. However, this was to be only a temporary respite. Wigan were playing without any attacking player on the right. Gomez would track back to help Boyce when the opposition attacked on their left, then move back to a central midfield position to receive the ball. As the half progressed a nervy QPR started to get on top. Their nerves were calmed after 32 minutes when James McCarthy idiotically palmed the ball away from a Barton corner. Helguson scored the resulting penalty with ease. The situation was exacerbated in the 45th minute when Gohouri ‘s trip on Campbell gave Buzsaky the chance to curl a wonderful free kick in off the post.

    Martinez brought on Conor Sammon after the break for McArthur – an attacking move but still leaving Wigan with only one real wide player, Victor Moses. However, Albert Crusat was to be brought on the 61st minute, with Latics scoring four minutes later. Set pieces really have not been Wigan’s speciality in the Martinez era and when I saw Hugo Rodallega stride up to take a free kick it did not ease my sense of foreboding. I had visions of his kick hitting the spectator on the back row of the stand behind the goal, but had a pleasant surprise as he stroked the ball home with aplomb from 25 yards. Well done, Hugo! However, after 73 minutes the referee gave QPR a ridiculous second penalty, once more against Gary Caldwell, but Al Habsi pulled off a wonderful save. Once again the goalkeeper had been Latics best player and kept us in the game. The nail in the coffin came when Tommy Smith hit a beauty from 30 yards from open play in the 81st minute.

    The Good

    Another goal for Hugo Rodallega who is regaining his form. Yet another excellent goalkeeping display from Ali Al Habsi.

    The Bad

    The last time I had that same kind of foreboding feeling was when I saw the team sheet against Bolton in mid October. We had only one wide player – with James McCarthy nominally on the left wing – and the end result was a 3-1 defeat to a struggling team. This was like déjà vu.

    Who knows what might have happened had James McCarthy not palmed away the ball after 32 minutes. It changed the game, giving QPR that confidence that they did not have before. However, let’s not beat about the bush here. When you play with a lone central striker you need two natural wide players to provide an attacking threat and to give balance. The sight of Emmerson Boyce moving into the opponent’s half and putting in long crosses was depressing. No blame attached to Boyce here – what else could he do with nobody else supporting him on that side of the pitch?

    During the Martinez era we have seen some good football mixed with farcical errors. More often than not individual errors have lost us matches, or their mistakes have proved to be turning points in converting potential victory into defeat. It is hard to blame the manager for individual errors. This is largely down to the players, probably related to their lack of self confidence. Martinez has to operate a relatively low budget, being unable to bring in the kind of experienced, hardened Premier League pro who demands exhorbitant wages. This means developing players within the club and getting others from overseas leagues or the lower divisions in England. Given the club’s financial restraints – and I applaud Dave Whelan on his insistence on coming close to balancing the books – it means that the club needs to operate a “farm system” to survive. Put simply we need to develop players and sell the odd one each summer to keep the whole thing going. The trick is to have the replacement player groomed to take over from the one due to depart. Last year Charles N’Zogbia was to be the departing star, Victor Moses his potential replacement. Unfortunately Moses struggled with injury for part of last season and just did not get enough appearances under his belt. The result has been that this season he has shown huge promise, but so often the final pass or shot has been lacking. Centre forward has been a problem position under Martinez. This season Rodallega has been off form and has not signed a new contract. Neither Di Santo not Sammon has shown sufficient consistency or self belief to command a regular place.

    The manager has a difficult job in terms of the tight budget he has to work within and in getting players to come to what is perceived to be a small club. The irony of the situation is that this year we have probably as good a squad as we have had in the past seven Premier League seasons. It is that self-belief that remains lacking among the players, following an accumulation of horrendous thrashings against top four clubs and the frustrations of individual errors giving the points away against average, and often less than average, teams. A few weeks ago I commended Roberto Martinez on his tactical innovation of playing with three central defenders. It was a welcome change from a manager who had not shown such tactical flexibility in the past. If he has an Achilles heel as a manager then it is in this area.

    So Martinez has shown that he is able to adapt his tactics to suit the players he has at his disposal. He will almost certainly continue to pack his midfield and play with a lone centre forward. That is something I do not love, but which I can live with. However, I have to admit my frustration at his repeated tactic of playing either a centre forward or central midfield player on the flanks. Hugo Rodallaga has time and time again shown that he is not a left winger. He simply does not have the dribbling skills or the pace to play in that position. Neither do I want to see Franco di Santo or Conor Sammon assigned to the wings. If we have a lone centre forward let’s at least have two genuine wide players to pose an attacking threat on each side of the pitch. Please, please, please – let’s not see Jordi Gomez nominally on the right wing! Play him in his natural position in the centre of midfield.

    Player Ratings

    Ali Al Habsi: 9 – Another excellent display. Kept Latics in the game.

    Emmerson Boyce: 5 – Had to go off after 69 minutes. Has made too few appearances in the past two seasons. Let’s hope he can get back to the match fitness that is required for him to be a regular fixture.

    Steve Gohouri: 5 – Lacks confidence. He has never had a long run inn the team in his natural position as a centre half.

    Gary Caldwell: 5 – Is this controversial player a target for referees? I doubt whether the second half penalty given against him would have happened with most centre halves.

    Maynor Figueroa: 5 – Once more tried hard but was left exposed at times.
    James McCarthy: 5 – Giving away the penalty was not typical of him. He is a mature player for his age, but maybe the nerves are getting to him too.

    Ben Watson: 5 – Solid, but uninspired.

    James McArthur: 6 – Industrious as usual. Taken off at half time.

    Jordi Gomez: 5 – Ineffective in his hybrid role. Substituted after 61 minutes.

    Victor Moses: 6 – Tried hard despite the lack of good service coming to him.

    Hugo Rodallega: 6 – Worked hard, scored an excellent free kick.

    Substitutes


    Conor Sammon: 5 – Huffed and puffed, but no end result.

    Albert Crusat: – Did not get a lot of the ball. What a shame he was not on at the start.

    Ronnie Stam: – took over from Boyce, but had a frustrating time.