Latics were doomed with two Pavlyuchenko goals sandwiching a rare Luca Moderic effort. Camara’s late strike proved to be just a consolation.
The first was a rather dire affair with each team cancelling each other out, although Latics were the first to have a chance. Antonio Valencia lashed in a wicked cross but Camara could angle his header on target with the keeper helpless.
That was the highlight of the half for us, but to be fair we didn’t really have anything to do at the other end, just a couple of scares when firstly Kilbane nearly deflected a Bentley cross into his own goal, but luckily the ball went just wide.Moderic did have an effort go wide after a decent ball from Pavlyuchenko put him clean through. Darren Bent had a nightmare half until he limped off to be replaced by Frazier Campbell, a Summer target for Steve Bruce last year.
The second half started disastrously for Wigan as Kingson in goal for the first time for Latics needlessly brought down Campbell as he was going harmlessly away from goal. Pavlyuchenko stepped up to score from the penalty spot.
This should have been a trigger to our fringe players to stake a claim for a first team spot, but we just couldn’t seem to get anything going. Scharner did have a half chance, but he headed Valencia’s cross over the bar.
Our defence stood strong as a couple of waves of Spurs pressure saw us block out Pavlyuchenko twice before a wonder strike for Jamie O’Hare rocketed off the post and somehow landed plumb on Moderic’s head as he was falling over in the box, the ball seemed to just bounce off him into the net and he turned to celebrate like he’d won the World Cup with the best worked goal in history, but hey it was possibly the only contribution he made all match.
Steve Bruce rang the changes to try and inject a bit of urgency and he was rewarded with a great goal from Henri Camara, but as we pushed for an equaliser Pavlyuchenko tore up the other end to put the game out of our reach.
Although we got what we deserved today, I can’t wait to see what our full team can do against them in the league game next week, if we beat them then this result won’t matter a jot.
Report by Jason Taylor
|