Wigan Athletic travelled down to Fulham and produced a performance befitting of the Halloween weekend, a real horror show.
A Clint Dempsey first half double saw Latics impressive away record this season come to an abrupt end as Fulham bossed the game from start to finish.
Al-Habsi in goal looked nervous from the off and his distribution was awful, the back four didn`t perform, Gary Caldwell may be fit physically but his decision making was slow and out of sorts, the midfield couldn`t keep possession and the forwards couldn`t keep hold of the ball.
Latics boss Roberto Martinez has described the game as `our worst performance of the season` and he wasn`t far wrong.
Fulham defender Brede Hangeland had the alarm bells ringing early on when he headed over from 4 yards out, he was completely unmarked.
On 30 minutes Fulham took the lead, Carlos Salcido received the ball out wide on the left and whipped in a delightful cross, Dempsey, under no pressure from his marker Caldwell powered home a great header that gave Al-Habsi no chance.
The Latics conceded again right on half time, Chris Baird with the freedom of Craven Cottage crossed in from the right, Dempsey stepped in front of Caldwell and swept the ball home from 12 yards.
Martinez brought on Gomez for Di Santo after the break and put Rodallega through the middle, it didn`t make much difference, Latics couldn`t get any decent possession of the ball, Fulham were snappy in the tackle and crisp with their passing all afternoon
A poor game from the Latics point of view, they looked heavy legged and slow of thought and not one serious chance to talk about, but full credit to Fulham who were determined to get the three points
Fulham
Schwarzer; Baird, Hangeland, Hughes, Salcido; Davies (Johnson, 80), Murphy (Dikgacoi, 85), Greening, Dempsey; Gera, Dembele
Subs: Stockdale, Kelly, Pantsil, Kamara, Riise
Wigan Athletic
Al Habsi; Stam, G. Caldwell, Alcaraz, Figueroa; Thomas, Diame (Moses, 75); N’Zogbia, Cleverley, Rodallega; Di Santo (Gomez, 46)
Subs: Kirkland, Gohouri, S. Caldwell, Watson, Boselli
Pretty poor, back on track next week at Blackburn
Sorry worbo but we’ve never won at Ewood Park – I think we’ll get back on track with West Brom at the earliest and even that won’t be easy. A tough few weeks lie ahead for Wigan.
1 step forword and 2 steps back this week, Aand just as I thought we were defending better. Tactics were wrong at Ewood park in the last meeting, and it was painful sitting there watching it. For example, Bolton played a blinder against us at home to grind out a result the other week, and we have to learn to do the same or we will lose or even get thrashed by home clubs every other week.
At no point under Martinez have we ever been able to defend properly. Same old story we don’t stop crosses into the box and we nearly always leave the opposition totally unmarked. The organisation is awful.
We might not be in the bottom 3 just yet but if we keep defending like this is just a matter of time.
I agree King, but I thought we had good momentum going into this game, and we handed it back to Fulham on a plate. There’s a definite attitude problem within the team, and we have never really got hold of continued stability. I just hope the Martinez sets the stall out properly for the Blackburn game, or it will be a wasted on two two tickets already bought for that game. I have no problem with us losing. It’s the manner in which we lose.
Every team can have a bad day, lets put it down to that and see if we cant pick it up again next week at Blackburn…2 defeats in 11 aint bad
2 defeats in 11 actually sounds a lot better than when you actually break it down and see that 3 of those games came against lower league opposition in the cups and it’s only 2 wins out of 10 Premier League games.
Overall it’s only 6 wins in the league since it turned 2010!
KING YOU HAVE MADE A TRUE ASSESMENT OF THE SITUATION
If that was worse thn Blackpool at home then we have issues.
being outplayed is one thing, not being arsed is another