After the humiliation of the 9-1 defeat last week at Spurs, Bobby’s got to get Wigan Athletic believing again to take on Sunderland at the DW Stadium.

Steve Bruce’s return to the DW Stadium comes off the back of Latics biggest ever League defeat and the Black Cats are hopefully going to bear the brunt of the fallout from the humility last week at Spurs. Roberto had the team in for extra practise on Monday instead of officially opening the new town centre shop and he has been drilling the players all week to try and iron out the major cracks that opened up at White Hart Lane.

Some good news is that Figueroa will more than likely feature in this game, which will be interesting to say the least seeing as Brucey is almost guaranteeing his presence up at the Stadium of Light in January. It will though be a welcome return as Edman still looks to be a couple of yards off the pace, which Aaron Lennon fully utilised on Sunday.

Sunderland will still have Kenwyn Jones out and it is understood that Bent has a slight hamstring strain which could limit the amount of time he has on the pitch if he is risked at all. Cattermole is out until the New Year and so is probably on the lash round Middlesbrough with Gordon who is still injured as well.

Whelan has had another of his episodes this week in which he claimed Latics are still not playing to their maximum ability due to some of the signings Bruce made. I can only feel that he means that Martinez still hasn’t got all the players he wants and is therefore having to use Bruce’s signings until he has all the staff in that he feels he needs, it’s very confusing either way.

This at least has heated the game up a bit more as the Sunderland press got all high and mighty about it and even got Bruce and Cattermole coming out spouting some inane drivel…

The referee will be Martin Atkinson

Don’t forget that Geoff Davies will be appearing in the Supporters Club before the game and it would be really good for supporters old and new to come down and meet one of the players that helped Latics gain recognition and set the foundations for us ultimately to get into the football league.

Geoff scored 70 goals in two seasons in the early seventies and the stories he has from back then are amazing, he will be doing a questions and answer session in the club prior to the game and your presence would be really welcome, full details CLICK HERE

Head To Head League

	W	D	L	F	A
Home	2	3	1	7	4
Away	2	2	2	6	9
Total	4	5	3	13	13

For all previous results between Wigan Athletic and Sunderland Click Here

Current League Positions

	Pld	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts	Pos
Sunderland	13	6	2	5	21	19	+2	20	8th
Wigan Athletic	13	4	2	7	14	31	-17	14	16th

Recent Record

Latics	W	D	L	F	A	GD
Last 8 Games	2	2	4	10	23	-13

Away Team	W	D	L	F	A	GD
Last 8 Games	3	3	2	12	10	+2

Foul Play

Latics

Away Team

Games 08/09	Yellow Cards	Red Cards	Games 08/09	Yellow Cards	Red Cards
14	22	0	16	30	2
Average	1.57	0	Average	1.88	0.13

This Weekend In History

Wigan games from this week in years gone by:

	OPPONENTS	GROUND	RES	ATT.
07-08	MANCHESTER CITY	JJB STADIUM	1-1	18,614
96-97	HULL CITY	BOOTHFERRY PARK	1-1	3,537
83-84	BRADFORD CITY	SPINGFIELD PARK	4-2	3,471
78-79	BURY	GIGG LANE	1-4	9,339

Fixtures

28th November 2009

Aston Villa	v	Tottenham Hotspur
Blackburn Rovers	v	Stoke City
Fulham	v	Bolton Wanderers
Manchester City	v	Hull City
Portsmouth	v	Manchester United
West ham United	v	Burnley