Thanks Jordi – Match report, Wigan v Charlton. Sat 1 Feb

THANKS JORDI – IT’S ALL TO DO WITH PERSPECTIVE

The forecast was for drizzle, rain, heavy rain and more rain. I even thought about phoning Norma to ask if the game was going to be postponed. Norma knows everything! Another game in hand could be good.

All but 1 of the chippies in the vicinity of the station have closed down, such are the hard times of austerity (but they can find enough money to waste on HS2; glad someone has got a perspective on priorities, eh?) we live in at present, but the one I found was good, and went well with ‘Cockle Warmer’ from the Swan. And boy did we need our coats, duvet jackets, insulated trousers and cockle warmer to warm our cockles. It was a day when keeping warm was first priority in a now typical Saturday deluge, but this time without the lightening, avoiding hypothermia in the arctic blast was of secondary importance and football seemed least important until the 88th minute.

Stuart held us up in the concourse as he finished his beer, so we missed kick off but got to our seats to see the first goal go in, NOT ours, after 3 minutes. We nearly beat a hasty retreat to the Swan. A sloppy bit of defending helped by a good through pass on a quick counter attack left Ali with no chance. Stuart clearly knew something we didn’t and was keeping an important perspective on his day out.

From there on Charlton did what they had to do. Defended with 10 men. Every time we had an attack they just filled the box up. There was no way through either with Callum’s dancing, McClean’s running at the defence, neat passing and over runs with Jean B. As you can see from the stats we certainly attacked.

MATCH STATS
Possession
Wigan Athletic   Charlton Athletic
68%                   32%
Shots
28                       5
On target
7                        2
Corners
14                      3
Fouls
7                         14
Having said that, they did get some good ‘quick break attacks’, with Ali coming into his best again with a couple of good saves, and then 1 off the bar. Phew!!

Another one of our attacks / numerous goal mouth scrambles eventually got to Callum who unleashed a definite, but the bloody cross bar was in the way again. I shall be writing to Uwe to ask if we can get rid of them. They are nothing but a nuisance.

McClean danced and jinxed and charged and ran and wove and stepped over his way through everyone on every occasion heading impressively for goal. Then I remembered a bottle of beer I saw in Sainsbury’s called ‘Tangle Foot’. It’s good beer though!

Maynard is either scared of heading a ball, can’t jump high or is even less fit than I am. His ambling around the park makes me look like Ben Johnson when he wasn’t on drugs.

Boyceee came up for every corner, left defence open for a quick break, but darn well nearly scored on 1 trip south. Anyway why bother with defence when you are going to score, and Boyceeeee knows he’s going to score at every corner. I love his confidence!! Watson’s first corner landed on the Morecambe Town pitch, but after that he worked out the trajectory, wind direction, wind speed and perspective. Once it was all worked out Barnett was 2 inches off target.

Maynard did have a goal disallowed which was apparently an own goal any way but he was supposedly offside. As the guy behind me said, the reffing isn’t biased, it’s just crap! (I then said that we all know that in the Prem its crap AND biased)!

Stuart said we were shite for 88 minutes, which I think is a bit harsh, or maybe the excitement and delirium of the last 2 minutes clouded what preceded it and changed the perspective.

Macamanumunmaummmnun was getting back to his dancing best, and his acceleration from 0 – 60 is quicker than that of Balotelli’s Ferrari. When Callum decides to play …. don’t blink.

As inspirational as ever, Uwe made 3 substitutions. Jordi and Mcscreeeeechen came on and made an instant impact. McSchreech got the ball and screamed off down the right side and suddenly it all looked a lot more promising, even if that first dash screeched to a halt. Maynard went off and MAF came on. Mcscreeech screamed off again and passed it to MAF. The reports said he deftly slotted it into the bottom right corner in the 88th minute. From my perspective it looked like a floundering mis-kick that did a bit more than dribble in. But it went in. Jordi was controlling midfield and sending through his trade mark inch perfect passes. The poor Charlton keeper was tiring, he’d worked hardest of anyone on the pitch, with some fine saves. Then we attacked again, some great work from Jean, and a free kick in the first minute of extra time. Sir Ben and Jordi discussed who was going to take it. Jordi reminded Sir Ben that the game was being played in Wigan and not Charlton so it need more skill than hoof. Ben agreed. Jordi teed the ball up, polished his shoes on just one side to get the right spin, eyed the precise square centimetre of goal mouth it was going to squirm into, measured the wind speed and direction and programmed in to the ball ‘right curving banana’, three steps and KICK …… it had the curve of a boomerang on it (but it didn’t come back), and around the wall it went missing the post by a nanometre, and the poor exhausted goalie missing it after being hidden from it all by the wall. A stunner, and to quote GRUMPSTER “a reet sally wanger” or to translate “more bend than Ronaldo and so better”. We all sang “Jordi Gomez scores when he wants, he scores when he wants”, and thank fully we now all love him. (Remember Reading at home and Everton FA Cup). I actually felt, momentarily, sorry for their keeper from Standard Liege … he’d worked blinkin’ hard, had 28 shots and more hammering towards him, several pinball like bounces of the ball around the penalty area and he’d let 1 goal in by then. He nearly got to that wicked curver. At least he’d been able to keep warm but I’m surprised Ali at the other end wasn’t frozen, I was, and doing a lot more than Ali had to do! Actually I think the only person who could have got close to that shot would have been our very own ALI!
And if you don’t believe me, look at this

Jordi Gomez goal VS Charlton (free kick): http://t.co/vzTk8aCrWE via @YouTube

— . (@CapitalGoose) February 1, 2014

For a moment I was disappointed that Sir Ben wasn’t going to take the kick. From exactly the same spot, at exactly the same time, 2 seasons ago, against Hull he scored a corker that curved over the wall and not around it. That day there was no wind and the sun was out, so the conditions just weren’t right for him. Any way 2 seconds later I changed my mind, and I’m glad I did.

From the restart Charlton still attacked, which meant that our only way to ensure survival was for Ali to do perfectly legitimate time wasting. The Sultan of Oman had just tweeted him, and he needed to reply. Don’t you just hate time wasting when the opposition do it? It’s wrong!!

All credit to the 328 Charlton travellers who sang and sang and sang, and at the last gasp the roof fell in on them. It’s an awful feeling, and as Wigan supporters, apart from 1 famous day in May 2013, we know that feeling well.

All those that left early missed a cracking finish and somehow I’d warmed up or had forgotten I was cold and the rain had stopped. For some reason there were 14000 people with a smile on their faces and that is a great sight to see. Thanks Uwe, Ali, LordDave, Mcschreach, Macacacacamamanum, Jamessquared, Sir Ben, JORDI, MAF, Perchie, Jean, Leon and Boyceeeeeeeee. Next time bring on Espi as well.

If you think this is all rubbish, have a look at this and prove me wrong. http://youtu.be/n_vQzshG08M