BFTG - Wigan (A)

[Lower West]

I will add just to reiterate what I've said previously, Moore is class and imo our best player. Technique and his footballing brain look a cut above.

On reflection noticeable how much McShane was the ball in the first half in particular. As if Moore was a marked man. Moore was instrumental in the second goal. Not often you see a centre back on the edge of the oppositions box in the 4th minute of a game. Evans likewise sat deep for long periods. A tactic which worked well.

Don't think that this (current) team is capable of dominating the opposition.

[Royalwaster]

I will add just to reiterate what I've said previously, Moore is class and imo our best player. Technique and his footballing brain look a cut above.

On reflection noticeable how much McShane was the ball in the first half. .

So did McShane get kicked a lot? That must be the first time ever that one of our players was the ball in a game?

[NewCorkSeth]

Unfortunate for Meite at the end

What happened?

Goal ruled out for offside.

Was it offside for sure? The highlights don't show it properly. He looked so gutted..

[Lower West]

What happened?

Goal ruled out for offside.

Was it offside for sure? The highlights don't show it properly. He looked so gutted..

Really pumped up. This guy has bottled up desire.

[Maneki Neko]

I wonder if it is worth giving GMac a few games playing as a false 9 instead of Kermogant, exploiting his pace and interchanging with the two wide forwards (hopefully meite would be one of them). It's actually a system which I could have seen Blackman or HRK enjoying playing in (noted Blackman didn't even make the bench for Derby yesterday)

The front 3 did interchange a fair bit yesterday. Harriott and McCleary swapped wings but also Yann switched to the left hand side a few times with Harriott playing through the middle.

was interested to see that all three of swift, harriott and mcleary played further forward than Kermorgant at wigan.

[Dixeyroyal]

Maybe I saw a different game but I was thoroughly unconvinced with how we took our foot of the gas and gifted Wigan opportunities which a better team would have finished. Just like we shouldn't get carried away with a loss I don't think we should take too much from this. Wigan had more shots and more on target and despite scoring 3 goals we really didn't test Bogdan enough, only recall him making one save.

Not sure we did take our foot off the gas, it's just that Wigan could never play the 2nd half as badly as they did the 1st, and quite rightly showed a bit more determination in the 2nd half, pressing us higher up the pitch and not letting us play our normal game, hence the reason for more long balls from AAH in the 2nd half.
I'm getting totally carried away with a 3-0 win away from home, it was as comfortable as you are likley to see and proves that we have the ability now to punish such poor sides, something that we could never say last season!

[royalp-we]

All I hope is that the players return from the break looking to press on and not look back.

The international break is a joke tbh. There are 7 league fixtures in April. Plus cup match(es) if you get there. Compared to just 3 league games this month.

We've got some great games to look forward to in the run up to the new year, just hope everyone can stay fit for the long haul and keep improving as they have been. Onwards and upwards.