Sunday lunchtime - Norwich at the DW | Page 4 | Vital Football

Sunday lunchtime - Norwich at the DW

This will sound crazy, but without Windass this season we most likely would of been relegated. When i looked back at his stats earlier in the season, his goals and assists are vital to our points tally. He absolutely deserves the stick he gets at times though. But he probably doesn't get enough praise when he does well on the few occasions.

Here's his input, haven't looked recently. Was a while ago, but i'll look now and place it below.

Winning goal against hull, 2 points.(2-1 score)

Winning assist against Bristol city , 2 points.(1-0 score)

Only goal of the game against West brom, 2 points.(1-0 score)

2 assists against Blackburn although only 1 was counted, he earned the pen and rolled the pass to Mcmanaman for the open goal. 2 points, because it would of been 1-1 without him.(3-1 score)

Opening goal against Qpr, 1 point, as we won 2-1.

Only goal against Rotherham, 1 point.(1-1 score).

Since the Rotherham game he hasn't scored or had an assist.

Without his input though we'd be 10 points worse off this season.(He does have more assists from penalties, if anyone knows the games he earned them in, then we'd know exactly his input into our points). He's earned quite a few pens this season, but i've only included the one above, as i can't remember which games the others were in, even though i've watched them all.

One thing that annoys me about him, is that against Hull he looked sharp and was moving quickly. His work rate off the ball was also good. Then yesterday he was static and looked very slow. Either he has an issue with recovery, or works to hard and fatigues himself in training. Or simply goes through phases of not being interested. Either of the former, he has an issue with his mobility. Something he does to prepare for games isn't right.
 
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This will sound crazy, but without Windass this season we most likely would of been relegated. When i looked back at his stats earlier in the season, his goals and assists are vital to our points tally. He absolutely deserves the stick he gets at times though. But he probably doesn't get enough praise when he does well on the few occasions.

Here's his input, haven't looked recently. Was a while ago, but i'll look now and place it below.

Winning goal against hull, 2 points.(2-1 score)

Winning assist against Bristol city , 2 points.(1-0 score)

Only goal of the game against West brom, 2 points.(1-0 score)

2 assists against Blackburn although only 1 was counted, he earned the pen and rolled the pass to Mcmanaman for the open goal. 2 points, because it would of been 1-1 without him.(3-1 score)

Opening goal against Qpr, 1 point, as we won 2-1.

Only goal against Rotherham, 1 point.(1-1 score).

Since the Rotherham game he hasn't scored or had an assist.

Without his input though we'd be 10 points worse off this season.(He does have more assists from penalties, if anyone knows the games he earned them in, then we'd know exactly his input into our points). He's earned quite a few pens this season, but i've only included the one above, as i can't remember which games the others were in, even though i've watched them all.

One thing that annoys me about him, is that against Hull he looked sharp and was moving quickly. His work rate off the ball was also good. Then yesterday he was static and looked very slow. Either he has an issue with recovery, or works to hard and fatigues himself in training. Or simply goes through phases of not being interested. Either of the former, he has an issue with his mobility. Something he does to prepare for games isn't right.

It was Blackburn and Aston Villa (H) that he won penalties against.
 
Your right Will. I thought he had 3 or 4. After thinking about it for a few mins, i remember Vaughan got the pen against Millwall, Naismith against Swansea. Two from Windass. One against Bolton Grigg was fouled. Can't remember the rest though.
 
Your right Will. I thought he had 3 or 4. After thinking about it for a few mins, i remember Vaughan got the pen against Millwall, Naismith against Swansea. Two from Windass. One against Bolton Grigg was fouled. Can't remember the rest though.

Yeah the other two I think were the second goal against Forest at home, which Grigg won, and also the third of that fantastic night at the Britannia which was won by Powell. It's true though, Windass does turn up with goals at crucial times. Think of how important that equaliser against Rotherham could turn out to be. He obviously just needs to find more consistency in his game, and a bit more passion wouldn't go amiss!
 
Yeah the other two I think were the second goal against Forest at home, which Grigg won, and also the third of that fantastic night at the Britannia which was won by Powell. It's true though, Windass does turn up with goals at crucial times. Think of how important that equaliser against Rotherham could turn out to be. He obviously just needs to find more consistency in his game, and a bit more passion wouldn't go amiss!
And a footballing brain wouldnt half help the lad
 
A creditable performance and one we should of won , the frustrating thing is why now and not 6/7 matches ago .
I was another expecting defeat so a point was a bonus , Leeds another expecting defeat so we will see ..
Fight like that you never know but we do need to take our chances
This really is the time for the enigma that is Nick Powell to step up. Bielsa is an admirer if that rumoured interest earlier in the season was anything to go by so no better game to show off his talents than at a packed Elland Road. I'd love Nick to sign off at Latics (or announce his prolonged stay!) with a couple of crucial goals that seal our survival, it would give him hero status. The question is, does he really want to? Come on Nicky lad!
 
Football is a funny game - often when the loss (or win) look the most nailed on is when you see the upset. Yesterday was the first time i dreaded a game in years, there is always hope for an upset - i even fancied us to beat City in the cup final and at the DW last year when no one gave us a chance as i have a big faith that when the odds are stacked so high is when the magic usually happens for us - but yesterday i just couldn't see anything but a Norwich win - it seemed like after the mid week collapse we'd given up and mentally gone. That was type of performance we've been crying out for for weeks - we out fought, out thought and out worked Norwich in every department - it was miles away from a faultless performance but we showed the type of bravery, spirit and heart that have been horrendously lacking all too often over the last 30+ games. Even if we'd have lost late that you couldn't moan that the players left anything on the pitch of the management didn't try to win it - that is all you can ask for as a fan.

If we showed that intent and intenisty against Hull last Wednesday we'd have thumped them and be probably safe now. Same for all those 6 pointers where we played for draws or the mid table teams we caught sleeping - we'd comfortably have 15+ more points easy - which is why this season has been so unbelivably frustrating and all of the critasism has been so valid - we aren't perfect but we are more than good enough to compete if we are up for it and go for it - but all too often we haven't.

The issue is these type of performances have come once every 6 or 7 games this season we are all made up, we all hope that this is the start of the turn around and we'll show that fight again next week, then we go back to sleep for another painful run full off cowardly gutless performances before we turn in another display that makes you proud and the cycle repeats. We've done this 4 or 5 times now and every time it's been a false dawn - there is no time to go on another bad run - if this is a yet another false dawn we go down - if we finally found our bottle and will go at teams like that in each of our final 4 games we will stay up. More of the same please Wigan - there never has been anything to fear in this league if we apply ourselves properly - they did us and themselves proud against Norwich - lets salavage this horrible season with a good end - no more fucking cowardice, we are potentially better than Reading, Millwall and Rotherham but they have out fought us for months - if we work and battle as hard as them in the final 4 games - we stay up. It's not about ability it's about who wants it more no excuses left - fucking swing for the fences Wigan in the final 4 and we'll pull this off.

For the game itself n paper it looked a disasterous team selection i bet not a single Wigan fan would've picked that starting 11 - and most were going nuts to see who was picked - but Cook got it right. The high press we played completely nulified Nowichs ability to play the ball out and it was back to doing what we did so well at the start of the season. We still played an awful lot of long ball but long ball is not really an issue if you do it effectively and we were fighting for the knock downs, winning all of the second balls and getting men up in numbers - that wasn't sexy football but it was blood and thunder rather than turgid and hit and hope to no one. So i'm ok with that.

Nick Powell has hardly had a good game since the first 10 games of the season - and quite frankly the majority of his performances this season have been annoymous or down right rubbish with the odd moment of magic here and there - as valuable as those moments of magic are - what comes inbetween are becoming an incresing liability - when he's not limping off injured, he gives the ball away more than he finds his own man these days. While no doubting on his day the lad is one of the best outside the Prem his day is becoming rarer and rarer. So it was freshing to see Lee Evans doing a better impression of Nick Powell than Nick has managed in about 6 months in what must be Lee Evans best ever display in a Latics shirt - he was absolutely superb and seemingly came back to life after looking like a shadow of himself all season. Maybe that is where we've been going wrong - he isn't a defensive midfielder and needs to be in attacking mid?

Leon Clarke still was losing balls he should've had but he was much better than usual and turned in what also must be his bet perforamcne in a Latics shirt and we finally saw a glimpse of why he was so succesful at Sheff U. He was desperetly unlucky not to score his one on one and he was onside by the letter of the law for what should have been the winner. Much better from Clarke and if he can give us more of that we've got something to work with.

Thought James and Morsy were utterly immense in centre mid, Fox was great, Robinson has grown hugely since getting back into the side and now actually looks like a very decent player, Naismith was unlucky to get dropped when he did but did well although clearly knackered, Massey was hit and miss but always a threat. Byrne does well overall but he has 2 big faults - under real pressure he clears the ball blindly often back into danger rather than out of play and playing safe and his crossing is awful - he should give up trying to cross and find a pass instead. Dunkley does well as a big stopper but every now and then gets costly caught out. Walton looked dodgy again and we were lucky he was so well protected.

I think the ref got our penalty wrong by the letter of the law and the linesman got the offside winner wrong too by the letter of the law so i guess you can argue it evens out. But when you think back at the utter joke of a penalty Norwich got against us at their place it's still not even.

I think Cook saw that after about 60 minutes we were all knackered (need to look at fitness next year no matter what) and the high energy that had swarmmed Noriwch so effecively with a high press had ran out Massey and Naismith were both absolutely knackered and he wanted to inject some energy to continue the high press so i absolutely understood the logic in the subs but i thought one of them should've been Garner for certain. Unfortunately the 2 lads who came on didn't provide anything we changed the shape a little and it was largely the rest of the players carrying them rather than them giving us the deseried extra energy. Windass in particular was diabolical again - he finally seemed to find his feet before he was dropped but when he's come on as a sub since he's completely regressed to the awful clueless player he was when he first arrived. I saw the logic in Cooks subs they were positive too - but they didn't work out as planned, like i said i just wish we'd have had Garner on to play out of position and just run around battling than Windass or Powell. You can tell Cook didn't want to bring on Gibson no matter what - so why even have him on the bench give young Benni or MacDonald that spot.

Overall you can't really complain at that - hopefully it's not another good blip in a terrible run and finally a shoot of hope and a genuine turn around. If Cook can get them fighting like that and is as positive with his tactics we'll not have any debate on if he should go or not, and if the players are willing to figuratively die on the pitch like they were yesterday rather than at Hull were it all seemed a bit too much like hard work - then we wont go far wrong.
 
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I said a while ago that I rate Evans and Morsy and think they’re both far better pushing forward than playing really deep. The high pressing game really suited them yesterday. Hopefully Cook will realise we don’t need 2 midfielders sat just in front of the defenders. I think Fox makes a massive difference. He can defend but is also comfortable on the ball and midfielders don’t need to drop deep to pick the ball up from him. Whereas Dunkley and Kipre are awful in possession and usually have to give it to the nearest man or just lump it forward. A new centre half to play with Fox should be a priority in the summer.
 
Football is a funny game - often when the loss (or win) look the most nailed on is when you see the upset. Yesterday was the first time i dreaded a game in years, there is always hope for an upset - i even fancied us to beat City in the cup final and at the DW last year when no one gave us a chance as i have a big faith that when the odds are stacked so high is when the magic usually happens for us - but yesterday i just couldn't see anything but a Norwich win - it seemed like after the mid week collapse we'd given up and mentally gone. That was type of performance we've been crying out for for weeks - we out fought, out thought and out worked Norwich in every department - it was miles away from a faultless performance but we showed the type of bravery, spirit and heart that have been horrendously lacking all too often over the last 30+ games. Even if we'd have lost late that you couldn't moan that the players left anything on the pitch of the management didn't try to win it - that is all you can ask for as a fan.

If we showed that intent and intenisty against Hull last Wednesday we'd have thumped them and be probably safe now. Same for all those 6 pointers where we played for draws or the mid table teams we caught sleeping - we'd comfortably have 15+ more points easy - which is why this season has been so unbelivably frustrating and all of the critasism has been so valid - we aren't perfect but we are more than good enough to compete if we are up for it and go for it - but all too often we haven't.

The issue is these type of performances have come once every 6 or 7 games this season we are all made up, we all hope that this is the start of the turn around and we'll show that fight again next week, then we go back to sleep for another painful run full off cowardly gutless performances before we turn in another display that makes you proud and the cycle repeats. We've done this 4 or 5 times now and every time it's been a false dawn - there is no time to go on another bad run - if this is a yet another false dawn we go down - if we finally found our bottle and will go at teams like that in each of our final 4 games we will stay up. More of the same please Wigan - there never has been anything to fear in this league if we apply ourselves properly - they did us and themselves proud against Norwich - lets salavage this horrible season with a good end - no more fucking cowardice, we are potentially better than Reading, Millwall and Rotherham but they have out fought us for months - if we work and battle as hard as them in the final 4 games - we stay up. It's not about ability it's about who wants it more no excuses left - fucking swing for the fences Wigan in the final 4 and we'll pull this off.

For the game itself n paper it looked a disasterous team selection i bet not a single Wigan fan would've picked that starting 11 - and most were going nuts to see who was picked - but Cook got it right. The high press we played completely nulified Nowichs ability to play the ball out and it was back to doing what we did so well at the start of the season. We still played an awful lot of long ball but long ball is not really an issue if you do it effectively and we were fighting for the knock downs, winning all of the second balls and getting men up in numbers - that wasn't sexy football but it was blood and thunder rather than turgid and hit and hope to no one. So i'm ok with that.

Nick Powell has hardly had a good game since the first 10 games of the season - and quite frankly the majority of his performances this season have been annoymous or down right rubbish with the odd moment of magic here and there - as valuable as those moments of magic are - what comes inbetween are becoming an incresing liability - when he's not limping off injured, he gives the ball away more than he finds his own man these days. While no doubting on his day the lad is one of the best outside the Prem his day is becoming rarer and rarer. So it was freshing to see Lee Evans doing a better impression of Nick Powell than Nick has managed in about 6 months in what must be Lee Evans best ever display in a Latics shirt - he was absolutely superb and seemingly came back to life after looking like a shadow of himself all season. Maybe that is where we've been going wrong - he isn't a defensive midfielder and needs to be in attacking mid?

Leon Clarke still was losing balls he should've had but he was much better than usual and turned in what also must be his bet perforamcne in a Latics shirt and we finally saw a glimpse of why he was so succesful at Sheff U. He was desperetly unlucky not to score his one on one and he was onside by the letter of the law for what should have been the winner. Much better from Clarke and if he can give us more of that we've got something to work with.

Thought James and Morsy were utterly immense in centre mid, Fox was great, Robinson has grown hugely since getting back into the side and now actually looks like a very decent player, Naismith was unlucky to get dropped when he did but did well although clearly knackered, Massey was hit and miss but always a threat. Byrne does well overall but he has 2 big faults - under real pressure he clears the ball blindly often back into danger rather than out of play and playing safe and his crossing is awful - he should give up trying to cross and find a pass instead. Dunkley does well as a big stopper but every now and then gets costly caught out. Walton looked dodgy again and we were lucky he was so well protected.

I think the ref got our penalty wrong by the letter of the law and the linesman got the offside winner wrong too by the letter of the law so i guess you can argue it evens out. But when you think back at the utter joke of a penalty Norwich got against us at their place it's still not even.

I think Cook saw that after about 60 minutes we were all knackered (need to look at fitness next year no matter what) and the high energy that had swarmmed Noriwch so effecively with a high press had ran out Massey and Naismith were both absolutely knackered and he wanted to inject some energy to continue the high press so i absolutely understood the logic in the subs but i thought one of them should've been Garner for certain. Unfortunately the 2 lads who came on didn't provide anything we changed the shape a little and it was largely the rest of the players carrying them rather than them giving us the deseried extra energy. Windass in particular was diabolical again - he finally seemed to find his feet before he was dropped but when he's come on as a sub since he's completely regressed to the awful clueless player he was when he first arrived. I saw the logic in Cooks subs they were positive too - but they didn't work out as planned, like i said i just wish we'd have had Garner on to play out of position and just run around battling than Windass or Powell. You can tell Cook didn't want to bring on Gibson no matter what - so why even have him on the bench give young Benni or MacDonald that spot.

Overall you can't really complain at that - hopefully it's not another good blip in a terrible run and finally a shoot of hope and a genuine turn around. If Cook can get them fighting like that and is as positive with his tactics we'll not have any debate on if he should go or not, and if the players are willing to figuratively die on the pitch like they were yesterday rather than at Hull were it all seemed a bit too much like hard work - then we wont go far wrong.


Can't disagree with a word of that.
 
Football is a funny game - often when the loss (or win) look the most nailed on is when you see the upset. Yesterday was the first time i dreaded a game in years, there is always hope for an upset - i even fancied us to beat City in the cup final and at the DW last year when no one gave us a chance as i have a big faith that when the odds are stacked so high is when the magic usually happens for us - but yesterday i just couldn't see anything but a Norwich win - it seemed like after the mid week collapse we'd given up and mentally gone. That was type of performance we've been crying out for for weeks - we out fought, out thought and out worked Norwich in every department - it was miles away from a faultless performance but we showed the type of bravery, spirit and heart that have been horrendously lacking all too often over the last 30+ games. Even if we'd have lost late that you couldn't moan that the players left anything on the pitch of the management didn't try to win it - that is all you can ask for as a fan.

If we showed that intent and intenisty against Hull last Wednesday we'd have thumped them and be probably safe now. Same for all those 6 pointers where we played for draws or the mid table teams we caught sleeping - we'd comfortably have 15+ more points easy - which is why this season has been so unbelivably frustrating and all of the critasism has been so valid - we aren't perfect but we are more than good enough to compete if we are up for it and go for it - but all too often we haven't.

The issue is these type of performances have come once every 6 or 7 games this season we are all made up, we all hope that this is the start of the turn around and we'll show that fight again next week, then we go back to sleep for another painful run full off cowardly gutless performances before we turn in another display that makes you proud and the cycle repeats. We've done this 4 or 5 times now and every time it's been a false dawn - there is no time to go on another bad run - if this is a yet another false dawn we go down - if we finally found our bottle and will go at teams like that in each of our final 4 games we will stay up. More of the same please Wigan - there never has been anything to fear in this league if we apply ourselves properly - they did us and themselves proud against Norwich - lets salavage this horrible season with a good end - no more fucking cowardice, we are potentially better than Reading, Millwall and Rotherham but they have out fought us for months - if we work and battle as hard as them in the final 4 games - we stay up. It's not about ability it's about who wants it more no excuses left - fucking swing for the fences Wigan in the final 4 and we'll pull this off.

For the game itself n paper it looked a disasterous team selection i bet not a single Wigan fan would've picked that starting 11 - and most were going nuts to see who was picked - but Cook got it right. The high press we played completely nulified Nowichs ability to play the ball out and it was back to doing what we did so well at the start of the season. We still played an awful lot of long ball but long ball is not really an issue if you do it effectively and we were fighting for the knock downs, winning all of the second balls and getting men up in numbers - that wasn't sexy football but it was blood and thunder rather than turgid and hit and hope to no one. So i'm ok with that.

Nick Powell has hardly had a good game since the first 10 games of the season - and quite frankly the majority of his performances this season have been annoymous or down right rubbish with the odd moment of magic here and there - as valuable as those moments of magic are - what comes inbetween are becoming an incresing liability - when he's not limping off injured, he gives the ball away more than he finds his own man these days. While no doubting on his day the lad is one of the best outside the Prem his day is becoming rarer and rarer. So it was freshing to see Lee Evans doing a better impression of Nick Powell than Nick has managed in about 6 months in what must be Lee Evans best ever display in a Latics shirt - he was absolutely superb and seemingly came back to life after looking like a shadow of himself all season. Maybe that is where we've been going wrong - he isn't a defensive midfielder and needs to be in attacking mid?

Leon Clarke still was losing balls he should've had but he was much better than usual and turned in what also must be his bet perforamcne in a Latics shirt and we finally saw a glimpse of why he was so succesful at Sheff U. He was desperetly unlucky not to score his one on one and he was onside by the letter of the law for what should have been the winner. Much better from Clarke and if he can give us more of that we've got something to work with.

Thought James and Morsy were utterly immense in centre mid, Fox was great, Robinson has grown hugely since getting back into the side and now actually looks like a very decent player, Naismith was unlucky to get dropped when he did but did well although clearly knackered, Massey was hit and miss but always a threat. Byrne does well overall but he has 2 big faults - under real pressure he clears the ball blindly often back into danger rather than out of play and playing safe and his crossing is awful - he should give up trying to cross and find a pass instead. Dunkley does well as a big stopper but every now and then gets costly caught out. Walton looked dodgy again and we were lucky he was so well protected.

I think the ref got our penalty wrong by the letter of the law and the linesman got the offside winner wrong too by the letter of the law so i guess you can argue it evens out. But when you think back at the utter joke of a penalty Norwich got against us at their place it's still not even.

I think Cook saw that after about 60 minutes we were all knackered (need to look at fitness next year no matter what) and the high energy that had swarmmed Noriwch so effecively with a high press had ran out Massey and Naismith were both absolutely knackered and he wanted to inject some energy to continue the high press so i absolutely understood the logic in the subs but i thought one of them should've been Garner for certain. Unfortunately the 2 lads who came on didn't provide anything we changed the shape a little and it was largely the rest of the players carrying them rather than them giving us the deseried extra energy. Windass in particular was diabolical again - he finally seemed to find his feet before he was dropped but when he's come on as a sub since he's completely regressed to the awful clueless player he was when he first arrived. I saw the logic in Cooks subs they were positive too - but they didn't work out as planned, like i said i just wish we'd have had Garner on to play out of position and just run around battling than Windass or Powell. You can tell Cook didn't want to bring on Gibson no matter what - so why even have him on the bench give young Benni or MacDonald that spot.

Overall you can't really complain at that - hopefully it's not another good blip in a terrible run and finally a shoot of hope and a genuine turn around. If Cook can get them fighting like that and is as positive with his tactics we'll not have any debate on if he should go or not, and if the players are willing to figuratively die on the pitch like they were yesterday rather than at Hull were it all seemed a bit too much like hard work - then we wont go far wrong.

Brilliant post, mate, but just one thing... I would've given Walton a little more credit. He actually didn't have that much to do for the whole game but pulled off a fantastic save at 1-0; the shot was hit hard, he must've seen the ball very late and so often it's easy to lose concentration when you aren't making saves throughout the game. I thought he did well, tbf.
 
Football is a funny game - often when the loss (or win) look the most nailed on is when you see the upset. Yesterday was the first time i dreaded a game in years, there is always hope for an upset - i even fancied us to beat City in the cup final and at the DW last year when no one gave us a chance as i have a big faith that when the odds are stacked so high is when the magic usually happens for us - but yesterday i just couldn't see anything but a Norwich win - it seemed like after the mid week collapse we'd given up and mentally gone. That was type of performance we've been crying out for for weeks - we out fought, out thought and out worked Norwich in every department - it was miles away from a faultless performance but we showed the type of bravery, spirit and heart that have been horrendously lacking all too often over the last 30+ games. Even if we'd have lost late that you couldn't moan that the players left anything on the pitch of the management didn't try to win it - that is all you can ask for as a fan.

If we showed that intent and intenisty against Hull last Wednesday we'd have thumped them and be probably safe now. Same for all those 6 pointers where we played for draws or the mid table teams we caught sleeping - we'd comfortably have 15+ more points easy - which is why this season has been so unbelivably frustrating and all of the critasism has been so valid - we aren't perfect but we are more than good enough to compete if we are up for it and go for it - but all too often we haven't.

The issue is these type of performances have come once every 6 or 7 games this season we are all made up, we all hope that this is the start of the turn around and we'll show that fight again next week, then we go back to sleep for another painful run full off cowardly gutless performances before we turn in another display that makes you proud and the cycle repeats. We've done this 4 or 5 times now and every time it's been a false dawn - there is no time to go on another bad run - if this is a yet another false dawn we go down - if we finally found our bottle and will go at teams like that in each of our final 4 games we will stay up. More of the same please Wigan - there never has been anything to fear in this league if we apply ourselves properly - they did us and themselves proud against Norwich - lets salavage this horrible season with a good end - no more fucking cowardice, we are potentially better than Reading, Millwall and Rotherham but they have out fought us for months - if we work and battle as hard as them in the final 4 games - we stay up. It's not about ability it's about who wants it more no excuses left - fucking swing for the fences Wigan in the final 4 and we'll pull this off.

For the game itself n paper it looked a disasterous team selection i bet not a single Wigan fan would've picked that starting 11 - and most were going nuts to see who was picked - but Cook got it right. The high press we played completely nulified Nowichs ability to play the ball out and it was back to doing what we did so well at the start of the season. We still played an awful lot of long ball but long ball is not really an issue if you do it effectively and we were fighting for the knock downs, winning all of the second balls and getting men up in numbers - that wasn't sexy football but it was blood and thunder rather than turgid and hit and hope to no one. So i'm ok with that.

Nick Powell has hardly had a good game since the first 10 games of the season - and quite frankly the majority of his performances this season have been annoymous or down right rubbish with the odd moment of magic here and there - as valuable as those moments of magic are - what comes inbetween are becoming an incresing liability - when he's not limping off injured, he gives the ball away more than he finds his own man these days. While no doubting on his day the lad is one of the best outside the Prem his day is becoming rarer and rarer. So it was freshing to see Lee Evans doing a better impression of Nick Powell than Nick has managed in about 6 months in what must be Lee Evans best ever display in a Latics shirt - he was absolutely superb and seemingly came back to life after looking like a shadow of himself all season. Maybe that is where we've been going wrong - he isn't a defensive midfielder and needs to be in attacking mid?

Leon Clarke still was losing balls he should've had but he was much better than usual and turned in what also must be his bet perforamcne in a Latics shirt and we finally saw a glimpse of why he was so succesful at Sheff U. He was desperetly unlucky not to score his one on one and he was onside by the letter of the law for what should have been the winner. Much better from Clarke and if he can give us more of that we've got something to work with.

Thought James and Morsy were utterly immense in centre mid, Fox was great, Robinson has grown hugely since getting back into the side and now actually looks like a very decent player, Naismith was unlucky to get dropped when he did but did well although clearly knackered, Massey was hit and miss but always a threat. Byrne does well overall but he has 2 big faults - under real pressure he clears the ball blindly often back into danger rather than out of play and playing safe and his crossing is awful - he should give up trying to cross and find a pass instead. Dunkley does well as a big stopper but every now and then gets costly caught out. Walton looked dodgy again and we were lucky he was so well protected.

I think the ref got our penalty wrong by the letter of the law and the linesman got the offside winner wrong too by the letter of the law so i guess you can argue it evens out. But when you think back at the utter joke of a penalty Norwich got against us at their place it's still not even.

I think Cook saw that after about 60 minutes we were all knackered (need to look at fitness next year no matter what) and the high energy that had swarmmed Noriwch so effecively with a high press had ran out Massey and Naismith were both absolutely knackered and he wanted to inject some energy to continue the high press so i absolutely understood the logic in the subs but i thought one of them should've been Garner for certain. Unfortunately the 2 lads who came on didn't provide anything we changed the shape a little and it was largely the rest of the players carrying them rather than them giving us the deseried extra energy. Windass in particular was diabolical again - he finally seemed to find his feet before he was dropped but when he's come on as a sub since he's completely regressed to the awful clueless player he was when he first arrived. I saw the logic in Cooks subs they were positive too - but they didn't work out as planned, like i said i just wish we'd have had Garner on to play out of position and just run around battling than Windass or Powell. You can tell Cook didn't want to bring on Gibson no matter what - so why even have him on the bench give young Benni or MacDonald that spot.

Overall you can't really complain at that - hopefully it's not another good blip in a terrible run and finally a shoot of hope and a genuine turn around. If Cook can get them fighting like that and is as positive with his tactics we'll not have any debate on if he should go or not, and if the players are willing to figuratively die on the pitch like they were yesterday rather than at Hull were it all seemed a bit too much like hard work - then we wont go far wrong.
This is the best synopsis you've made in a while and one of the only ones I haven't felt compelled to scroll through. Enjoy yourself a biscuit as a reward.
 
Thought you said you didn't read KDZ's match reports? ;)
I don't read most of them all the way through. I used to but recently I find myself scrolling. Too wordy. Now if he could include some pictures I'd find them more interesting. That, and a more balanced review instead of perpetuating the witch hunt on certain players. ?
 
This is the best synopsis you've made in a while and one of the only ones I haven't felt compelled to scroll through. Enjoy yourself a biscuit as a reward.

I don't read most of them all the way through. I used to but recently I find myself scrolling. Too wordy. Now if he could include some pictures I'd find them more interesting. That, and a more balanced review instead of perpetuating the witch hunt on certain players. ?

I see you find reading hard and prefer picture books so well done for getting through - you've earned a biscuit. Next thing to work on is actually formulating coherant counter arguments rather than passive aggressive, patronising sniping - but i think you've probably got a long way to go on that - not sure you'll ever get there but God loves a trier.
 
In that case, no offence, but I hope you break down, get lost, or develop an illness which requires hospitalisation over the Easter weekend.

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Sorry Mooney, made it to Leeds, despite hitting a huge pothole en route! Currently in the hotel with a nice pint ?, will probably have a couple more so hopefully I won’t require hospitalisation before the night is out ?
 
Sorry Mooney, made it to Leeds, despite hitting a huge pothole en route! Currently in the hotel with a nice pint ?, will probably have a couple more so hopefully I won’t require hospitalisation before the night is out ?

Your pint might be off.
You might slip in the shower.
You might fall out of bed.
You might get stuck in a broken lift.
There's still plenty of time yet.
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