When are Wigan-na win again?

Match Review: Wigan Athletic 2-2 QPR

Three points out of three games including two aways for Harry is not a bad start, and statistically he is undefeated. But the calibre of opposition, such as today's, is a truer reflection of the job in hand. These three games were all against teams around us, and all games where the opposition were there for the taking.

And now for something completely different: I'll start this post by painting you a nice picture of Wigan in 2012. Apart from the modern and imposing 'landmark' that is the DW Stadium, the place is one that time has forgotten. There are entire shopping malls vacated of shops and devoid of people. Primark, Card Factory and the Pound Shop are the only hives of activity on the High Street and the shutters are pulled firmly down on many. The walk to the stadium takes you through a derelict industrial estate which is now host to a hotch-potch of "I'll mind your car for a fiver mate" match day parking arrangements. Then you pass over a ditch, a path made of dog crap and after you cross the heavily polluted dumping ground that is the canal, the stadium finally comes into view. A thoroughly depressing place, especially when the weather each time I have been has been grey, murky, drizzly and just generally miserable. This is a shit hole, I want to go home...

The DW Stadium, set amongst the delightful surroundings of Wigan's abandoned industrial wastelands and canals. Spot the shopping trolleys in the canal!

Literacy levels are among the highest in Wigan

Fortunately for the residents, the town has a nice, modern stadium home to a Premier League team right on its doorstep. Benefactor Dave Whelan is a Wigan man born and bred and dearly wanted to give something back to the local community. And they are very lucky he is there indeed to subsidise all this. You can get a half season ticket here for under £180 which will even guarantee your ticket to Manchester United at home, their only guaranteed sell-out fixture at this 25,000 seater ground. 

The visit of bottom of the league QPR can't particularly have whetted the appetite of many, but over 17,000 were here to witness the match on a cold dull winter's day. Not bad for a side in the lower realms of the football league not all that long ago.

Anyway, I've bored you enough of Wigan as a town, let's talk football. Rangers began the game brightly even if a little unconfident and the depleted Wigan side, without first choices such as Alcaraz, Ramis, Maloney, Caldwell and Figueroa (four of those five usually contenders for a place in defence), looked shaky, confused and every bit as depleted as that list suggests. They were there for the taking on their home patch. What isn't, however, factored in to that, is that QPR's first choice defence look equally shaky and confused in spite of having played together for most of the season! 

After testing Al-Habsi a couple of times early on, the first warning delivered by the hosts was a David Jones free-kick special (you'll remember the one that came off once when he was playing for Wolves where he flicked it up in the air and volleyed it towards goal - well, he still thinks people don't know about that one!). This all came about from Jose Bosingwa (my favourite, as you know) conceding a needless free kick in a dangerous position when up until this point his side had been in control of possession, dictating the game and growing in confidence. Green saved the free kick and it was partially cleared, and then, to everyone's amazement in red, a corner was given. The Rangers defence were agitated by this award by Mr Dowd and so fuming that they forgot to concentrate when the corner came in. Yes, you know what's coming next: the corner was only partially cleared and nobody was quick enough to spot James McCarthy waiting on the edge of the penalty area for any loose ball that might come his way. He had time to take aim through a crowd of players who seemed to just step aside as his daisy cutter rifled straight through them all into the bottom corner for 1-0. Utterly ridiculous, and the nerves of the home side and crowd completely disappeared. Another soft, soft goal to concede and yet again as a result of poor marking from a set piece.

One of my biggest gripes with QPR in recent games is their failure to exploit the left hand side, the side from which so many goals resulted towards the end of last season. We seem to live under the false belief that Jose Bosingwa and Shaun Wright-Phillips offer our best attacking threat, but in fact Armand Traore is one of the best crossers of the ball we have had at the club in a long time. He might not be able to defend, but he provides an excellent overlap for a winger - shame we don't have one on that side! How ironic then that moments after moaning to my father next to me about not using the left hand side enough, the ball should break to the left, Traore gallops forward and forces a QPR corner for the first time in the game. Taarabt took said corner and yet again he failed to beat the first man. Fortunately for him this time though, there was some movement in the box, and as the ball drifted over and all QPR fans fully expected to see Adrian Lopez clear this one with ease, Ryan Nelsen popped up and escaped the attention of Lopez to firmly win the ball with a face full of determination. The ball was powered past Al-Habsi and it was 1-1. Why don't we do any of that more often? Maybe we won't come up against someone quite as inept as Lopez every week, but plenty of the other sides I've seen us play have defenders who can be ran ragged like this at set pieces. Just a little bit of movement and determination to win the goal, and look. Bang. Goal. 

But instead of grabbing the game by its throat as they should have at this point, QPR didn't put their foot on the gas. Instead their passing was lethargic and they looked tired, unfit and as though they really didn't want to be out in the cold. Not many of the Wigan players did either and, bar causing one moment of panic in the Rangers defensive area, this made for a dull affair. The game only really livened up whenever Di Santo was around (he ran around like a headless chicken in search of the ball, fouled a lot and fell over a lot to con free kicks out of the regularly woeful Phil Dowd) or when the ball was played out to Beausejour on the wing, who the Latics fans enjoyed seeing ease past double Champions League winning League Two standard defender Jose Bosingwa. Dowd continued to annoy for much of the half, blowing for soft free kicks and not awarding cards for some cynical fouls committed by each side until Taarabt eventually went in the book for chopping down a Wigan man on the wing. I've never seen Dowd referee a game without being whistle happy or making a contentious decision. The referee was rightly booed off by the travelling fans at half time.

Grey, murky, wet and miserable

In the second half Wigan came out galvanised and had a phase of play early on where they created chance after chance against the weak R's back line. Green stood up well to each test he was presented with, saving well from James McCarthy with his legs when the Latics man was one on one with him after Shaun Derry inadventently played a perfect through ball to him. They went on to force a series of further stops from Green and hit the bar with one Jordi Gomez attempt. The defending was absolutely shambolic, and Jose Bosingwa, the main guilty party in letting all this happen, had the cheek to shrug his shoulders and wave his warms around as if it was everybody else's fault. I thought we signed a Portuguese international right back who is a double European champion and winner of the Premier League! Please can we have Nedum Onuoha back Harry or play Fabio on the right hand side? Did I really just say that?

So having finally won the ball back after a mistake at the back by Wigan and just a tad of ambition was shown by Shaun Wright Phillips to close down a Wigan defender, suddenly it was 2 v 2. Wright Phillips, not being able to cross of course, elected to side foot the ball into substitute Djibril Cisse's path and he steered it first time into the bottom corner beyond Al-Habsi who was off his line. The first away win in over a year was on!! I dared to dream that having wethered the Wigan early second half storm we would have confidence flooding through the team and go on to score another against the fragile stand-in Wigan defence. This was the season turning point. But with QPR, dreams are often shattered moments after you've dared to start believing, and sure enough three minutes later it was "Desmond". The ball came down Wigan's left and Bosingwa was turned once again by Beausejour, and once again the QPR players all stood off James McCarthy and by the time he had the ball and five defenders in front of him obscuring Green's vision, it was too late, and two two. This absolutely destroyed the players that care about the predicament we are in.  Green went ballistic and Clint Hill and Shaun Derry were smacking the ground in despair. Nobody could believe this had happened. 

Following the equaliser, Wigan's reserves sensed a winner and began to pile the pressure on the one man defence of QPR (Rob Green). He made some outstanding saves to keep the scores level, whilst his QPR team mates didn't go on to create a single further chance in spite of this being yet another 'must win' game. Harry threw on the out of form and short of interest Esteban Granero who proceeded to play sideways football, not beat the first man with a corner and swivel around when in possession as he always does. I think that this key substitution, three minutes after conceding the equaliser, was the one Harry got wrong. I'd have brought on Ale Faurlin, who must be reeling at the fact he is on the bench after having done very little wrong this season and played such a vital role for QPR in the last couple of seasons prior to his ACL injury. Even Cisse was poor after the equaliser: he looked disinterested and every time he tried to get involved with the game, he fell on his arse. As predicted in the Villa match report, Mackie was marked out of this game and therefore anonymous. This is not at all what we need up front, especially when we're so vulnerable at the back. Sparky has left us so so short of options and we are so desperate that even Rob Hulse and DJ Campbell wouldn't be a bad shout. What a Hughes mess!!

Man of the Match: Given the wretched start he had to his QPR career and the poor treatment by Hughes, I think Rob Green showed today why despite making many high profile mistakes in his career, he has been in the reckoning for the England jersey. This was an excellent display, but he was overworked and his defence didn't do him any favours.