Wigan Athletic’s game against Aston Villa at the DW Stadium has been postponed following a 8.30am pitch inspection.
Following yesterday evening’s failure of the undersoil heating system at the DW Stadium, match referee Stuart Atwell has decided to postpone this afternoon’s game against Aston Villa deeming the pitch unplayable following an early morning pitch inspection.
The game looked likely to be going ahead with extensive work around the outlying areas of the ground proving successful and the heating system doing its job throughout the week.
However at around 5pm last night the system developed a serious fault and with temperatures overnight dropping to as low as -10 degrees centigrade the match was thrown into doubt and eventually called off.
The club apologised for the posptponement with manager Roberto Martinez commenting: “We are devastated because the club has worked so hard in these freak weather conditions to make the area surrounding the stadium safe. The pitch has never been the problem, until now.
“I have to congratulate our safety team at the stadium who have worked tirelessly to try and clear the area of ice and snow over the past few days. Our ground staff have also spent several nights at the stadium making the sure the pitch remained playable.”
The match became the sixth Premier League casualty of the current adverse weather conditions this weekend with only five games actually surviving the cold snap in the whole of the Football League today.
