Wigan Athletic took on SPL side St. Mirren at the DW Stadium in their last warm up game before the big kick off next Saturday against Aston Villa and beat their Scottish opponents 3-1 in an emotional home coming for new boss and returning Latics legend Roberto Martinez.
Before the game Martinez and his two good friends Isidro Diaz and Jesus Seba who formed the famous Three Amigo`s back in the mid 1990`s at the Latics were introduced to the crowd and received a raptuous reception.
Latics lined up in a now familiar 4-4-1-1 formation with Rodallega playing the lone striker and Gomez just behind in the ‘hole`, out wide were Koumas on the left with N`Zogbia on the right, Brown and Cattermole made up the midfield.
Edman started at left back due to Figueroa being back in Honduras preparing for their World Cup qualifier, Boyce, Bramble and Melchiot made up the rest of the back four and with Kirkland in goal it wasn`t too far short of who will be turning out against Villa come next Saturday.
Latics started the game brightly and Rodallega hit the post inside three minutes, Gomez was looking to get involved at every opportunity and down the left Edman was looking back to his old self.
Latics struck on 27 mins when a delightful free-kick from Jason Koumas flew into the top corner of the St. Mirren goal. 3 minutes later though and the Saints were level.
A terrible mix-up between Bramble and Boyce saw Boycie fall flat on his back-side and leave St. Mirren striker Craig Dargo the easy chance of being clean through on goal with just Kirkland to beat, he made no mistake and fired past the Latics keeper for 1-1.
Latics enjoyed the majority of possession in the first half and created more chances with Gallacher in the ST. Mirren goal pulling off three very good saves.
The second half started the same way as the first with the Latics enjoying most of the possession and when left back Edman was up-ended just outside the box to earn Latics a free kick, Hugo Rodallega stepped up to keep his goal scoring run going with a well taken effort that beat Gallacher at his near post from 20 yards.
The scoring was wrapped up on 58 minutes when following a corner the ball was pinging about in the area and club captain Mario Melchiot hit a spectacular overhead into the Saints goal, 3-1.
St. Mirren could have grabbed a goal back late on when Tom Brighton rounded Kirland but fired wide of an empty net.
A good result against a decent side but the defence looked a little shaky at times. The real stuff starts next Saturday.
Wigan Athletic
Kirkland; Melchiot, Bramble, Boyce, Edman; Cattermole (Scharner, 55), Brown; N’Zogbia (Sinclair, 80), Gomez, Koumas (Scotland, 55); Rodallega (Watson, 80)
Subs: Pollitt, Cho, Bouaouzan, de Ridder, King
St. Mirren
Gallacher; Ross, Camara, McGinn, Mair; Potter, O’Donnell, Brady, Trialist; Higdon, Dargo
Subs: Howard, Mehmet, Brighton, Wyness, Robb, Barron, Innes, Dorman
A half decent game and nice to see Bobby and his mates back
A good game, yes. Good possession and good passing of the ball but not an over exciting game. Two excellent free kicks for the first two goals. I don’t know about N’Zogbia being the star player. After the reports from the earlier friendlies I was a little dissappointed with his contribution. Cattermole was lucky not to have been given a yellow or even a red. There was certainly something going on between him and their no7. Their goal was defo an own goal by Bramble. In fact he probably made more errors than he did in all, of last season. Lets hope that’s it for the rest of the season. Edman and the St Mirren player were in the box but Edman landed outside so should have been a pen. But we scored from the free-kick so all was well.
Overall a satisfactory performance and I am looking forward to the season.