Wigan Athletic travelled up to the North East yesterday hoping to get something from the Sunderland game, a fixture that the Latics usually do well in, unfortunately chances not taken, failure to close down and, once again questionable refereeing decisions, put paid to the chance of coming back down the A1 with anything but frustration
Latics enjoyed the better of possession in the first half of the game and created the better chances, but five minutes into the second half Jordi Gomez was shown a straight red, challenging for a 50/50 with Sunderland’s Danny Rose, Howard Webb deemed it dangerous play. Sunderland scored within minutes as the Latics were regrouping, obviously Martinez believes the sending off was the turning point, let’s take a look at what he had to say about it
Latics boss Roberto Martinez – ‘I think it’s harsh. It’s harsh because Danny Rose loses the ball slightly.
‘Jordi tackles as a striker tackles, showing the studs, but he never leaves the ground, it’s not a two-footed challenge.
‘I can understand why the referee gave it, but I think it’s very, very harsh.
‘My disappointment is that Larsson has made a worse tackle against Kone and is not even shown a yellow card.
‘That’s just as you want as a manager, you want consistency for both teams.
‘It’s down to the referee’s decision if he considers that that challenge is a red card, but then every challenge in the same manner should be a red card.
‘That’s the disappointment. At the moment, we are on the back of a few bad decisions and you just need to take it in football. It happens.
‘You just hope that over the course of the season, you are going to get good calls coming in our favour even though now, we find it difficult to understand that’s going to happen.’
Sunderland boss Martin O’Neill, though sympathetic, was more focused on his two big players in the game, Simon Mignolet and Steven Fletcher, let’s take a look at what he said
Sunderland boss Martin O’Neill – ‘My first thought was it looked a bit harsh to begin with. Having seen it back, I’m not so sure that the referee had much alternative
‘Whether Roberto agrees or disagrees with it – it may have been a sending-off – but I think his main point was that maybe it changed the dynamic of the game from that viewpoint because we reaped our reward pretty quickly.
‘We scored soon after that and it gave us some impetus, a lot of impetus, in fact.’
‘Wigan came and played their part, and I have to thank Mignolet for making two incredibly good saves for us to keep it at 0-0.
‘Fletcher has come up big again for us, so eventually we have won the game, although it was edgy towards the end. But the win was vitally important for us and it keeps us going.’
Latics and Proud
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