Wigan 1-1 Everton: Daily Mirror match report
Published 21:33 05/02/12 By David Maddock
When you’re a team trying to play your way out of trouble, it’s hard having a pitch that looks like they play rugby on it.
What’s worse for relegation-haunted Wigan is that the Warriors, their rugby league tenants, have not even started trampling their way across the DW Stadium yet.
God knows what the surface will be like when the Warriors’ season gets in full swing, but if the Latics think they can play their passing game on it and beat the drop, they are done for.
OK, they received outrageous help from the pitch with Phil Neville’s own goal, which took a horrible deviation from a divot to spiral past Everton keeper Tim Howard, but the home side were largely undermined by trying to pass their way across a cow patch.
Old boy Leighton Baines escaped relegation on the last day of his second season at Wigan, but thinks they will be hard pressed to do so again, unless they adapt. Everton, he said, had to “go back to basics” to grind out results and he hopes Wigan can follow suit.
He said: “The pitch isn’t great, as you could see from their goal. There were quite a few holes. Wigan like to try and pass the ball so it doesn’t help them. They play some good stuff at times but it is not easy to knock it around on that pitch.
“It is nobody else’s job to decide what they should do, but you wonder if they have to adapt a little bit and find a way to win games. We have had to do that.
“Earlier on in the season we weren’t getting any results so we went back to basics and that helped.”
The reality for both clubs is this was an awful game, although the Arctic weather did not help. But Wigan’s problems run deeper.
They look a team without belief, they can’t win or even score, and when Everton did the job for them (although neither Neville nor Howard were to blame), they did not have the tenacity to hang on.
Maybe they don’t have the players to grit things out, but a passing game without a cutting edge is a dangerous tactic.
Manager Roberto Martinez may have built his reputation on it, but for all that he insisted afterwards his side were “the dominant one”, reputations don’t last long in football.
He said: “We are not a strong team, one who will play long balls, be direct and play percentage football.
“We need to play with a smile on our faces, with arrogance and bravery and we did that today. That’s how we have to carry on.” Baines’ delivery created the late equaliser for Victor Anichebe (below, right) and perhaps Everton should have scored earlier when Darron Gibson blazed over.
Yet Everton also seemed tired. And boss David Moyes warned: “I said at the start of the season it was going to be difficult and I don’t think things have changed because we’ve made a few signings and beaten Manchester City in midweek.”
