Every season there is a team that ‘over achieves’ or reaches those heights that they weren’t given a chance in hell of achieving, Wigan Athletic could well be that team this season.
Looking at our season last term you draw significant attention to the amount of goals let in, some saw our goals scored as being very dismal as well, yet we scored as many goals as we had done in previous seasons, so no real differences there in real terms.
As for the defensive record, take away 6 games and the goals against (average) wasn’t any worse than previous years, but we did have those games where we capitulated far too easily and to be honest it was quite something that we didn’t have more games like this as some players didn’t or couldn’t buy in to Martinez’s systems.
I think this boiled down to the midfield not having the confidence (or having far too much confidence??) in the defenders, plus they didn’t have that strong tackling/holding player in there to steady things (we sold Brown and Cattermole who would have done that job). Maybe the like of McCarthey, McCartney and Mo Mo will come to the fore here this time.
The problem didn’t stop at the midfield though, the defence at times looked like rabbits in the headlights, they at times looked like they had never had to pass a ball about. To an extent I suppose this was true, as in previous years under previous managers the ‘get rid’ at all costs was the attitude adopted.
Fans who want to go back to the hoof ball tactics must be soft in the head, yes we all want our team to win, but surely it is better seeing the type of football that we witness now rather than the tennis football pushed on us over the past couple of seasons.
The midfield and defence this year will have a totally different look and approach to last year as we try to show that you don’t need to spend 100’s of millions on players to get a good passing football team.
Add to this that so far we haven’t lost any of our better performers (maybe Bramble, but he was certainly one who was not comfortable on the ball) of last year and it shows that we have grown stronger in the close season.
All the hype over Rodallega, N’Zogbia and Figueroa going off to big teams has not exactly come to fruition and if we do start the season with their services we can only be better for it. The additions will also give us more variety and whatmore they aren’t old, most are positively young in fact.
One problem we didn’t have last season was the creating of chances to score, we just didn’t have the right person on the field to convert a massive amount of these chances. Boselli really does seem like he has a very good eye for goals and so may quite well bag a lot this year (click the link for Betfair above, register and get on the top goal scorer e/w.. it has to be worth a punt).
This is why I think Roberto Martinez will come through this term, he achieved exactly what he wanted to achieve last season and I think with the right mentality from the off we will prove the doubters wrong (both media and fans).
All in all I feel very positive about the coming season and if any of you are betting bods, get yourself some bets on us this season (handicap, top goal scorer etc…) you might regret it come the end of the season if you don’t. There are links on site to both Betfair and 188BET, if you don’t already have accounts and are going to have a flutter, get on them and help us out. No names but one person who did that and got the free £25 bet offer, ended up with over £280 in their sky rocket last year.
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