If anyone knows the formula for closing games down when you go in front, away from home, could they please forward answers on a postcard to Paul Jewell, c/o Wigan Athletic Football Club, Christopher Park, Wigan?  First prize is the golden chalice of a victory against one of last season’s top five.

The last nil all draw in the league came in the promotion season at home to Burnley, it was the sort of game that the phrase bore draw was made for.  This one may not have been a thriller but it was far from boring.  Jewell had it down as the best we’ve played this […]

“You’re in rubbish form, not won away all season, only scored one goal, a penalty at that.  It’s a certainty that you’ll win 4-0.”  I’m not a betting man, but based on that text message, sent at 11am on the day of this game, perhaps I should be.  Then again it hardly takes a genius […]

For Paul Jewell it was a freak result -one of those things that happens in football, if he spent time with any of the 12,000 (ish) home fans on Monday evening he’d have heard plenty of other descriptions, none of them delivered with the shrug of the shoulders that the manager’s comment implies.  Once the […]

The Premiership really is a funny old league.  A few sides apart, no one seems to have the recipe for continued ‘success’.  Whether success means, challenging for Europe, mid-table mediocrity or avoiding relegation it’s hard enough to keep it going over the course of 38 games, let alone for the season after as well.

With Bolton on the rebound from a thrashing from United and Latics still fighting to establish their season this was never going to be a classic.  As it turned out, it wasn’t even a game for the die-hard.  Whether the few who made the trip paid the £36 out of habit or nostalgia is anyone’s […]

Fulham 0-1 Latics Saturday 28th October 2006 Last season, both the games between these sides went the wrong way. Fulham had the better of their defeat at the JJB whilst Steed Malbranque’s goal at Craven Cottage cruelly snatched the points away from a Latics side that had dominated the game. The only injustice yesterday was […]

With the combination of bad form and bad temper that has beset the Anfield goalkeeping fraternity over recent weeks you must have started to wonder what would happen with Chris Kirkland. Here is a keeper on top of his game, officially a Liverpool player and only a recall clause away from being whisked off back […]

The doctor is about to cut a hole in your neck and root around in there for a few minutes whilst he tries to clean out a cyst. The nurse warns you it’s going to hurt like hell and offers you the choice of a general or local aesthetic. Having a general means that you’ll […]

Whilst the low turn outs against Watford and Reading were no surprise to anyone, the attendances for the visits of the two Manchester clubs must have come as a shock to the system. For the club that is, anyone who knows more than two Latics fans will know someone who has taken the “I’m not […]