Two goals in the last twenty minutes saw Latics lose to Manchester City in an entertaining game at the DW Stadium last night
An injury hit home side had a slightly unfamiliar feel about it, Boyce, Lopez and Figueroa in the back three, Stam and Jones coming into the midfield alongside McCarthy and Beausejour, with Gomez continuing up front with Di Santo and Koné
The Latics looked lively on a bitterly cold night, Beausejour hitting a right footed shot that was blocked near to the line, whilst City didn`t really create much in the opening phases with Balotelli in particular looking out of sorts
Ronnie Stam went on a tremendous gallop down the right flank, skipping past three City players before whipping a cross in from the by-line, Koné got to the ball before Hart but unfortunately headed over
With half-time fast approaching Jordi Gomez turned two players in the box only to go down under a heavy challenge from behind, PENALTY screamed the home fans, but referee Mark Halsey was having none of it
With the whistle about to blow for the half-time cuppa’s Yaya Toure skipped his way through the Latics defence only for Al Habsi to parry his shot away
In the second half Balotelli missed from an unmarked position at the far post when he headed wide and at the other end Koné also could have done better when he headed wide from a great cross
The deadlock was broken when Al Habsi spilled an effort from Barry that he should have held comfortably, Balotelli hit the shot but the Latics keeper got his body in the way, unfortunately the ball fell kindly for the City striker and this time Balotelli made no mistake firing home from 8 yards, 68 minutes gone, 0-1
It was 2-0 four minutes later, Latics defenders guilty of being drawn to the ball, four players surrounding David Silva, this created room for James Milner who when he had the ball played to him had time to set himself before unleashing a quality strike from 20 yards that gave Al Habsi no chance as it thundered into the top corner, 72 minutes, 0-2
The game petered out after this four minute flurry City taking all the points, but it could have been different had we taken any of the chances before their opening goal
Teams
Latics Al Habsi, Boyce, Lopez, Figueroa, McCarthy, Jones (McArthur 74), Stam (McManaman 90), Beausejour, Gomez, Di Santo, Kone
Subs not used – Pollitt, Redmond, Fyvie, Boselli, Golbart
Man City – Hart, Maicon, Kompany, Nastasic, Zabaleta, Barry, Garcia (Miner 59, K Toure 81), Silva, Y Toure, Balotelli, Aguero (Kolarov 68)
Subs not used – Pantilimon, Sinclair, Dzeko, Tevez
This weeks podcast was recorded at the DW Stadium prior to the Man City game
We had Barry, Dan, Rob, Paul and Gareth on location, we are chatting about the win over Reading last Saturday, plus we look ahead to the City game and try for a bit of analysis at the end.
You can download the podcast from itunes, you can download from our hosting site www.buzzsprout.com , or simply click play on the embedded player below
As always feedback, both positive and negative is welcome and if you want to get involved in the recording of future episodes please contact us at wigan@vitalfootball.co.uk marking your email ‘Podcast’
Pity we couldnt have got the first goal