Match Report from the Wigan game, on True-Faiths website 
There’s a club round here son, and you’re not part of it.
Dave Whelan’s smug words to our new owner when confronted about the price fixing of football shirts practised by Whelan’s retail empire several years ago.
On the evidence of this Wigan team, those words may well be thrown back at him come the end of the season.
Wigan were awful!
Blazing sun and a rare 3pm Saturday kick off meant this game had some promise, especially with the return of Bramble in the opposing back 4. A set up that was more 4-4-2 than the previous attempts at 4-3-3 meant a bit more width and attacking threat and apart from the first 10 minutes where the game was evenly balanced, we got at Wigan and with a bit more composure and fortune, would have gone in 2 or 3 goals to the good.
A yellow for Kilbane in the first half meant he was always going to be on card happy Steve Bennett’s radar and he was shown another yellow seconds into the second half for a perfectly fair challenge to Smith. This forced Sibierski off as a tactical switch to a well deserved round of applause and it was one way traffic thereafter.
The introduction of Oba Martins was the turning point, his pace and trickery too much for the Wigan defence and the inevitable Bramble moment wasn’t long in coming. We’ve sat through this for seasons, waiting for that mistake which saw Given picking the ball out of the net, and a poor clearance by Titus allowed a quick ball out to Martins who put a cross in from the right which had peach written all over it.
Owen got ahead of Bramble and nodded in at the near post with the Skeletor like Kirkland helpless, to the obvious relief of the home fans who stayed patient throughout. It always had the feeling of when, not if, we would score.
Time still for Wigan to try and get something back but it was all summed up with Heskey’s efforts to howk Taylor and then Harper rather than play a bit of football.
And besides, there was no chance of anything getting past our centre halves. Whisper it quietly, but we look like we have a defence for the first time since they put a man on the moon. The introduction of the new full backs will allow N’Zobgia to play further forward and shift Milner back to the right and give us a better balance as Smith is not a wide player, for all of his effort.
A decent game, good result and still unbeaten. Not said that for a while.
Man of the match – Rozenhal. A touch of class!
