Aston Villa 1-1 Wigan: Sunday Mirror match report
Published 22:30 07/05/11 By Ralph Ellis
They are the team that won’t go away – the Barnacle Bills of the Barclays Premier League.
For six years they’ve been the titches in the land of the giants, and nothing’s changed.
If you include cup ties, then this season even Blackpool have had better average gates.
But every time you think that Wigan won’t last another season among the big boys of the top flight they somehow cling on.
Here we are, two games from the end of another campaign, and Roberto Martinez and his boys are threatening to do it again.
After grabbing an early Charles N’Zogbia goal, they kept the ball so well it strangled the life out of Villa and but for a brilliant Ashley Young free-kick it might have earned all three points.
“We are learning to live with the pressure we are under,” said Martinez.
“In the last 12 games we have done really well and we are fighting for our lives.
“A week or so ago when we conceded a goal at Sunderland it hit us badly, but we showed today we have learned to cope with that situation. We need four more points now from the six that are left.”
N’Zogbia was a doubt before the game because of a dead leg, but there was no sign of any problem as he pounced to give Wigan the lead in the 10th minute.
Villa full-back Kyle Walker went into the game knowing he’d just earned a Championship winners’ medal for the 20 games he spent on loan at QPR in the first half of the season. Maybe his mind was still on that as he lost the ball in midfield and Victor Moses punished the error, playing a pass that N’Zogbia ran on to and finished clinically.
If Wigan are Barnacle Bill then Villa are a big rudderless liner at the moment, drifting aimlessly while they wait to learn whether Gerard Houllier will return.
But the players, who started the game so sleepily it was as if their summer holidays had already begun, at least briefly found a response.
Young drew Ben Watson into a foul before curling a superb 20-yarder into the bottom corner beyond the reach of keeper Ali Al-Habsi.
After that only an occasional flash of inspiration from Stewart Downing changed the tempo, although Al-Habsi did have to keep out Darren Bent late on with a brilliant save.
But that was about as good as it got for the home side, and the main talking point was quite why Emile Heskey lost his temper so thoroughly in a few mad first-half minutes.
Angry that he didn’t get a foul for a challenge by Gary Caldwell, the former England striker stormed at referee Michael Jones and appeared to barge into him, putting his face an inch or two from the ref’s to carry on the argument.
Amazingly he escaped with only a yellow card, but was so wound up that he had to be subbed at half-time when the row had carried on in the tunnel.
Caretaker boss Gary McAllister said: “I made a change for the good of the team as we wanted to finish with 11 men.
“It wasn’t pretty and we went behind to an unforced error.
“We are grinding our way to the end of the season.”
Aston Villa v Wigan, Premier League - Picture special
