[Lord Snooty]

Wigan Athletic v Huddersfield Town
Sky Bet League One
Tuesday February 25th - 19:45 ko
at the Brick Community Stadium

Huddersfield Town travel to Wigan to the Pile of Bricks Community Stadium on Tuesday evening for another re-arranged game of football.

And the Terriers go there once again, as a club in crisis. Difficult to understand as we are still in fifth place in the League One table and only nine points off an automatic promotion spot. But the low quality football being served up by Mike Dufflecoat and his merry men is driving supporters to despair. The performance against Peterborough United on Saturday was unacceptable on so many levels that even I came close to booing the team off.

The injury list is a great excuse to have for all this, but is it really? Not in my opinion. It's all down to the recruitment team. Taking on unfit players in the hope that they will come good is like building your house on sand. I say recruitment team, I mean Mark Cartwright of course. How he kept his job after overseeing a disastrous relegation, is beyond belief.

So which of our current bunch of crocks will be available for this game on Tuesday night? Listening to Paul Ogden after the game on BBC Radio Leeds, as he was waiting to interview Dufflecoat, Radinio Balker walked past him, smiling but carrying a large ice pack. No way will he play. When the Head Coach did appear, almost an hour after the final whistle, he told us the news that Tom Lees was out for the rest of the season and that Nigel Lonwijk came off because he was "cramping up" and it was Nigel himself asking to come off, which led to confusion on the touchline as the fourth official had indicated that Jonathan Hogg was coming off.

A crazy state of affairs. Nowt against the lad, but can you imagine Peter Jackson, Andy Morrison or Peter Clarke asking to come off because they were cramping up?

So we finished the game with Ollie Turton and David Kasumu at centre back.

Thankfully Brodie Spencer will be available after his two match suspension, but who will be at centre back alongside him? Loick Ayina? I doubt it after Dufflecoat didn't trust him on Saturday to come on. Hopefully a fully fit Lonwijk, but probably knowing our luck he won't be and we'll get Turton or Josh Ruffels.

As for the Latics, they had a creditable draw on Saturday, down at second placed Wycombe Wanderers, but by the sound of things, goalkeeper Sam Tickle won that point for them.

This has all the signs of another low quality, bore-fest with probably just the one goal in it. Let's hope I'm wrong and Town turn up and tonk them ten-nil. Not gonna happen though, is it!?






Head to Head



Town lead the head to head with 14 wins to Wigan's 11, with 8 draws.

I can't recall many good games between these two clubs. They tend to be desparately dull. The one we played at the John Smith's in December being yet another one. Ollie Turton scoring his first Town goal was the only good part of the game, as I recall.

The first time we met was back in the 1973/74 FA Cup 1st round when the Latics were still a non league club. We beat them 2-0 with both goals coming from young Bob Newton, who had just turned 18 the day before.

They got elected into the Football League in 1978, in place of Southport and so with us being in Division 4 at the time, we were one of their first league opponents when they came to Leeds Road and came away with a point in a 1-1 draw. Paul Bielby scored ours from the penalty spot.

The following season we did the double over them. My first visit to Springfield Park saw us win 2-1 in the promotion season of 79/80, with Ian Holmes and Peter Fletcher scoring. We'd done the double over them before October was out as they came to our place and got spanked 4-0. Fletch scored twice in that one with Brian Stanton and David Cowling adding the others to take us top of the 4th Division table.

Looking down the list of results on Soccerbase, it's very hard to spot anything else interesting. They pumped us at the Galpharm in the FA Cup back in 2013 when they were a Premier League side and had current boss, Shaun Maloney in the line up. But then there's a lot of 0-0's and 1-0's with probably the most memorable being the late winner from Nahki Wells at the JJB in the 2016/17 promotion season.

The most recent season we had together was 2022/23 when they did the double over us despite getting relegated. The 2-1 home win I seem to remember was one of the most miserable evenings watching football I've ever had. Here's hoping we don't suffer such like again on Tuesday.

Recent form - last 6 matches:

Town 0-1 Peterborough
Shrewsbury 0-1 Town
Barnsley 1-2 Town
Town 0-0 Reading
Northampton 3-2 Town
Town 0-1 Birmingham

Wycombe 0-0 Wigan
Crawley 1-1 Wigan
Wigan 0-2 Stockport
Wigan 1-2 Fulham (FA Cup)
Wigan 1-1 Lincoln
Peterborough 1-0 Wigan

Town are 5th in the League One table with 55 points. Wigan are 16th with 36.


Leading scorers:

Terriers:
Ben Wiles (7)
Josh Koroma (7)
Callum Marshall (6)

Latics:
Thelo Aasgaard (8)
Dale Taylor (6)




Wigan Anagrams: The first five are to do with Wigan Athletic, the other five are for Wigan in general.

1. Flaking Drippers
   
2. Handel Wave
   
3. Unholy Seaman
   
4. Norbert Atomizer
   
5. Beans Town
   
6. Arrowing Is War
   
7. Be More Froggy
   
8. Her TV Eve
   
9. Ignacio Swan
   
10. Waring Pie
    

[theo_luddite]

Nice one Snoots - have they cleared the drains this year then or is it welly and waders again like New Years Day?

[jjamez]

Assuming one of the answers is Dave Whelan?

Apparently they were booed off on Saturday too. Don't think I've ever heard all fans boo in unison at the end of a game.

I imagine Brodie and Nigel will be in the centre of defence, I was surprised when kasumu went there and not ayina so I won't be backing him to feature, in fact if I was him, having been told by a car salesman to find a new club as I'm not wanted, I'd be saying find a new defender to put on the bench. Hogg featured there under Carlos a few times, but the only thing I can think of was to try and combat Jones as much as possible, Hogg and turton would have been crucified

[theo_luddite]

One of 'em has to be Wigan Pier too - I'll give it 10, or 2x Foive.

[Lord Snooty]

Yep. Dave Whelan at 2 and Waring Pie is indeed Wigan Pier.

Good start, lads.

[theo_luddite]

Responding to one of Wakey's comments on the Pish Posh thread, Duff Duff lost me during his first run of defeats and the abysmal performances. If there's one thing I'll give him, he doesn't come out with a pile of bs and throw individual players under the bus in his pressers, unlike a certain Scotsman that used to stroll around the side streets of Leeds Road and claimed all the sweet smelling roses in the garden were due to his tender loving care and the weeds were someone else's issue. That the pair of roses (or was it wins?) he cultivated were over run with weeds never entered his head. Is he in line for the Rangers job? Shirley the best Jock coach that Germany has ever seen must be in line for an interview? https://www.bettingodds.com/thesackrace/teams/rangers Oh!

We can't do anything about the players we've got until summer, but we can when it comes to Carthoss. Given all the other cut'em and they 'bleed Town' folk that have been pushed out (hello Ann Hough, how are you doing?) how this guy justifies a wage (or even breathing oxygen) is beyond me. We tried the 'injured but decent when fit' player route yonks ago with the same result. Have to wonder who at the club at the time might have reminded him of that? Likely no longer at the club either anyway. But he is.

Duff Duff has also hinted there's issues elsewhere in the club. No Sh!t Sherlock.

---

£35m for 17 year olds? Denis Law will be spinning in his urn.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/art...kn0dv2e0po

[Lord Snooty]

The match is on Sky Sports + by the way. Forgot to put that in.

[jjamez]

Pub quiz or sky sports +?

Decisions decisions.

I thought Wigan pier but I didn't think there was owt there full stop

---

3 is Shaun Maloney

[Lord Snooty]

There's a pub there now.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wigan_Pier?wprov=sfla1

[theo_luddite]

It's never been open though when I've walked by on the way to the ground from the station.
The Orwell is permanently closed according to Google maps