With no Anderson or John our defence looks terribly vulnerable. Little creativity or holding potential in midfield. A bit more potential up front but it's unlikely they'll get any decent service. At some point we might flook a goal. How many will Wigan score? I'll go 3 - 1 to Wigan, Dodoo to score.

Perhaps we need to look at the free agent market again soon. Including managers.

After I saw the news about Cameron John, it was a case of HELP! as we need it. I thought he was beginning to play so much better than last season.
What do we do for a back line? It looks like Knoyle will be available, so from the right, I assume it will be Knoyle, Williams, Horton and Rowe. I prefer Rowe as a wing back, and he did provide some good passes on Tuesday. However, he was forward when Seaman's cross field pass was intercepted for the first goal. I admit it was an ambitious pass but seemed to be accurate, and Miller sprinted to intercept and nobody moved to cover for Rowe. Earlier, Seaman sent a similar pass that did reach Rowe.
Has anyone seen Blythe play?
At least Dahlberg should play - I'm sure he is really looking forward to it!
I'll go for Wigan 3 Rovers 1 with Hiwula to score. May change this after seeing the team.

Greetings fellow Ziggers,

Not looking forward to this weekend at all, if I'm being honest. At least we've got a keeper and the young lad from Man U is back, unfortunately John is out so our back four is made up with two CBs who just aren't ready/ good enough to be a pairing. A right back who gets took to the cleaners by any winger with pace and Tommy who isn't a left back. We will get bullied all over the midfield again, nobody with any balls to get stuck in.
I can see another big score coming, social media going into melt down, and Baldwin just praising himself for something other than saying how it really is.
Can we score? I believe once these forwards get used to playing with each other, we will score goals. Problem is, we could be rooted to the bottom of the table by then.

3-1 to Wigan. Dodoo to score against his old club.

4-1 Wigan Dodoo goal

Not confident of getting any result at all.
Wiggin 4-0 Rovers
Hope that I'm soooo wrong.

Liked the look of the front 3 v rotherham, but can they get one or target? Not to sure to be honest. 4 nil defeat ☹

Wigan 2 rovers0

Wigan 2 rovers0

Well, I think the score line flattered us a little – just look at the stats and be thankful we had Dahlberg in goal. The back four were better than Tuesday, and Ro-Shaun Williams had just about his best game so far, but he still gives me the jitters far too often. Olowu was reasonably solid. Again, almost no creativity in mid-field and hence little good feed for the front men. Smith and Galbraith have some good moments, but make too many poor passes and mistakes, especially Smith, and both do not handle the physicality of the “men’s game” very well. Hiwula did not show the spark he had against Rotherham, nor did Vilca when he came on for Seaman. Dodoo worked hard, but did not get a clear chance.
Once again, we do not seem to take advantage of throw-ins – players do not seem to offer options to the taker, and the result is often a long throw that usually goes to the opponents. I know I’ve criticised how sometimes we play out from the back. Today, Dahlberg mainly used a long kick that did us no good. I have little confidence going forward that wins will come.
Before the game I was a little worried about the ref as he had been showering yellow cards around in games so far, and he certainly kept it up today. While some were justified, it is the inconsistency that is worrying. Also, he often had Rovers go back to where the ball went out for throw-ins, and he did once late in the game for Wigan. However, for their second goal he let then take a quick throw-in about 12-15 yards from where it went out (and no run-up in that number), and he should have made them take it again. Then the guy who scored looked suspiciously offside.
Their first goal was dreadful set-piece defending. Someone should have been marking the guy who scored.

An additional comment - I was worried at every corner or set piece. We are so open to headers from such events.

Not just me then, every set piece your waiting for the net to bulge as our set piece defending is a joke. Big thing that I spotted for the winner, was their forward grabbed hold of our defender to stop him running out, thus playing the scorer onside. Other teams have focused on our "weak" defending too, Rotherham just bullied us every single set piece. All teams will of spotted our weakness, can see Morecombe scoring a few from set pieces as they are a rather strong physical side, for want if better words 😉

Agree re defending. Its been a weakness for some time. Though it did ease with Anderson and Butler at the back. However what troubles me more is the obvious weakness of our midfield leading to more pressure on the defence and no service to the forwards.

Thanks Mickey. I was away at the weekend, so heard no commentary and only picked up the score towards the end of the match. I have now seen the extended highlights and looked at some of the full match footage. I don’t disagree about the ref’s handling of the match.

Back to the football though, and I wish there was something visible, perhaps good defending, effective inter-passing - our success rate was 20% less than Wigan’s, good teamwork or evidence of players developing an understanding of each other’s games or impressive individual play - Dahlberg excepted! (This statement hangs in the air and it somehow epitomises Wellens’ so-called team.)

So to turn to the team, does the sum of the parts even seem to equal an amount equivalent to their individual values? Can we relate this to the manager’s thinking because when he is not blaming officials, he often focuses on the return to fitness of players which he believes will make all the difference.

Will the next addition suddenly convert the other 10 into a cohesive force?

The DPL results this time created what I think is a record. but not one that warms the heart. There was 100% success in predicting the result of the game - a loss. If we go on losing we may have to consider a new category of forecasting the margin of defeat.

Let us hope that happy days are not too far away.

Wigan A 2 : Rovers 1 (Rowe)
>>>>>>> Scorer > Score > Result Bonus > Total > Pts B/F > O/all
Donaldo>>> 0 >>>>> 0 >>>>> 3 >>>> 0 >>>> 3 >>>>>>> 6 >>>>>> 9
PDXMickey> 0 >>>>> 0 >>>>> 3 >>>> 0 >>>> 3 >>>>>>> 6 >>>>>> 9
BVZ>>>>>>> 0 >>>>> 0 >>>>> 3 >>>> 0 >>>> 3 >>>>>>> 0 >>>>>> 3
Crazy>>>>> 0 >>>>> 0 >>>>> 3 >>>> 0 >>>>> 3 >>>>>> 6 >>>>>> 9
Mooligan>> 0 >>>>> 0 >>>>> 3 >>>> 0 >>>>> 3 >>>>> 18 >>>>>> 21
Nookie>>>> 0 >>>>> 0 >>>>> 3 >>>> 0 >>>>> 3 >>>>> 18 >>>>>> 21
Selby>>>>> 0 >>>>> 0 >>>>> 3 >>>> 0 >>>>> 3 >>>>> 24 >>>>>> 27
LixmKing>>> 0 >>>>> 0 >>>>> 3 >>>> 0 >>>>> 3 >>>>> 3 >>>>>> 6
>>>>>>>>> 0 >>>>> 0 >>>> 24 >>>> 0 >>>>> 24 >>>>> 81 >>>>> 105