The second half was not quite as entertaining, and when paired with the first into a full 90 minutes it leaves me in no doubt that the right team won the game. There were a few contentious decisions that brought a bit of anger afterwards, not just from Michael Appleton but from me as well, and those are perhaps the things we need to talk about.
There’s the Ted Bishop ‘penalty’ shout, which wasn’t given. You can see that in my tweet below.
Not so sure now…. If it's not a pen it's a corner though. pic.twitter.com/Msg6uvkA6i
— The Stacey West (@Staceywestblog) April 10, 2022
Now, I was incensed at the time, and even Matt who sits next to me thought it was a penalty. The replay isn’t conclusive, and on second look (which the referee doesn’t get), it isn’t as clear cut as we thought. I think. Honestly, if it were us committing the foul, I’d feel aggrieved if it is given, but also relieved it wasn’t. The issue you have is the fact the referee gave a goal kick, because he’s essentially suggesting Bishop got to the ball first. Now, if he did, then it’s a foul for me, as the player coming in behind takes Ted out. The fact the defender claims he’s given away a corner also suggests it’s a penalty; why would he suggest it’s a corner if he hasn’t fouled the player? He’s suggesting that he’s got the ball, which indicates if he hasn’t, it’s a foul. This was committed at 2-1, and a penalty at that time could have seen us in the ascendency. I truly believe that we were in the game up to that point; the second half xG was only 0.36 for us and 0.77 for them, again nothing in it. It was a fine margin and whether the referee made the right call or not doesn’t matter, he made a call and that was that.
Call me what you like, but I believed up until their third we were still in it. Jordan Wright kept us there with a fine save from Magennis, whereas Lewis Fiorini’s effort on 65 minutes was a decent chance for us. Neither side were rampant in the second, I felt Wigan let us have possession and sat a bit deeper, knowing they could make the ball stick to Magennis if they needed to. It led to us trying to find a way through without a lot of success, but we did create chances, fewer than the first half, but we were in the game.
That changed on 72 minutes when Callum Lang got their third. The talk was of a foul by Magennis in the build-up, but I’ve watched it back and I’m not buying that. The penalty I can see, but if I take my rose-tinted glasses off, Bishop loses the ball to a stronger player. I don’t think everything Magennis does is within the game’s laws, and he gets away with it because he’s athletic rather than a Matt Rhead figure. I’ll be honest; those 90 minutes changed my perception of Magennis. Do you know why he gets away with using his strength? Because he doesn’t play it the other way; he doesn’t go down like he’s been shot at any opportunity. He plays the strong game for 90 minutes, doesn’t try to buy free-kicks and I honestly think that helps him. I’m not a fan of players who buy free-kicks constantly. Rhead was another who went down easily and that led to ‘the boy who tried wolf’ scenario, whereas Hopper got it down to an art, but Magennis doesn’t. He’s as strong as a bison at all times and I (begrudgingly) respect that. Three promotion (assuming WIgan go up) in three seasons from this division proves he is an asset and here’s a bold claim; if we played our 4-3-3 with a player of his strength and mobility up top in the middle, we’d be in contention for a top-six place right now. That’s how fine the margins are in this division (okay, we’d have to have a centre-half pairing that played 30-odd games together I guess as well). Imagine that, right?.
He didn’t foul Ted, Wigan scored a perfectly legal third goal and it was goodnight, God bless, don’t let the bed bugs bite. I’m sure there was 18 minutes of football, plus stoppages that followed, but I don’t recall. It’s those 18 minutes that have fans frothing at the mouth when we’re virtually safe (which they said we wouldn’t be) and have lost to much poorer teams and put up much less of a fight. However, those 18 minutes, when we’re chasing the game, lacked urgency. It was as if we knew we were beaten, the players knew and everything just froze up. The changes happened too late in my opinion, the players that came on didn’t get a chance to hit their rhythm, the players that went off had been poor for much of the second half, and one left on the pitch was picking fights with a linesman for not retrieving the ball. Hell, I remember being in the company of someone who never usually went to games who once asked why the linesman doesn’t get the ball for play to restart quicker, and everyone laughed at their naivety. Now, we’ve got a player on the field who thinks it’s acceptable to have a pop at them? It’s really (and I’ll repeat that to emphasise how I feel on the subject) really embarrassing.
Overall, I’ll stand by the opinion we didn’t play badly yesterday. Liam Cullen definitely struggled, but those calling him to forget he helped change the game on Tuesday. The same goes for Ted Bishop, I thought he looked good in the first half, but faded in the second. Without Bridcutt we didn’t have strength in midfield, and that’s going to be Michael’s biggest problem over the summer. Conor McGrandles was bullied, Ted Bishop was bullied and our two centre-halves were (surprisingly) bullied. Jamie Robson got targeted as well, he had a torrid time when called into action. However, that only shows one side of the coin, that only shows the worms and bugs under the rock, not the polished exterior. I thought Lewis Fiorini was excellent, against, and when we flowed Bishop, McGrandles and he purred through the game. They matched the experienced Wigan midfield in terms of skill and execution but lacked when it came to the dirtier stuff.
I do get frustrated at times, because although I don’t expect us to go long, we lacked any real pace out wide. That said, Cohen Bramall and Brooke Norton-Cuffy would have played if fit, and if they play, then Scully and a decent right winger look much better, rather than finding themselves in dark alleys with nowhere to go. I do feel we add a pass into a move where one isn’t needed at times, we can often take a touch in midfield, there’s a ball out to the flank on, but we go across to a centre half who then goes out to the flank; it makes our approach look laboured and that is frustrating at times. I guess a bit more urgency in the final 15, especially when you’re 3-1, might be nice; it’s not like we could weaken our position by going gung-ho and conceding another, is it? However, I don’t think Michael ‘got it wrong’ as I’ve seen elsewhere; he’s damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t. If he doesn’t pick Cullen after he affected the game on Tuesday, then he’s not picking on merit. If he does and Cullen doesn’t play well, he’s picked the wrong team. It also easy to say ‘the team lacks pace’, when you know our quickest players are injured. What are we to do on a mid-table budget, buy ten fast players in case we lose a couple? The overreaction with four games left to play has been, in my opinion, spectacular. It’s as if the doomer and gloomers haven’t got the relegation they prophesied and so they need to justify their standpoint by being overly negative. It’s been a poor season, I get that, but I’ve seen much worse performances than that this campaign, games we’ve won and drawn as well. Have a bit of perspective, remember who we were playing, where they were, and how fine those margins actually were.
Yes, we need a stronger presence in midfield, a Tom Naylor figure, to cover for or replace Liam Bridcutt. Yes, we need the pace in wider areas, from full-backs ideally, and we need a defensive pairing that plays 30-odd games together. I admit that we’re needing some patching up and a bit of remedial work, but seriously, having a meltdown after losing a tight game against a side destined for the Championship almost reeks of entitlement.
Oh, and we also need our players to understand the linesman is not a fecking ball boy.
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