Wigan athletic v swansea match preview

Swansea make the long journey to bottom side wigan in a game whitch is likely to have lots and lots of passes in it!

However for wigan its more that just a game its a have to win game a crowd of around 20,000 is expected to be their cheering them on so the support will be thier for the latics who have been on a mini revival of late with two home draws and a impressive 2-1 win at local rivals and fellow strugglers Bolton also the latics are looking to build on a positive performance against Aston Villa a week ago.

For the Swans its a completly diffrent story they sit 14th in just there first season in the top flight and have pretty much nothing to play for with them bieng nine points off the bottom 3.

Wigan have a fully fit squad to choose from and Midfielder Mohamed Diame is pushing for a start, Swansea welcome back goalkeeper Michel Vorm after missing their 2-0 defeat at stoke due to illness.

Team scouting report week 1

This week we take a look at Roberto Martinez' Wigan side who aim to avoid relegation to the championship. And this season it will be tougher that ever before for the latics.

The best starting line up
Al habsi Boyce Caldwell Alcaraz Figueroa Diame Macarthy Gomez Moses Sammon/Rodallega Beausejour

Best players
1. Ali al habsi The Oman international keeper has provided some great saves to earn wigan vital points this season
2. Mohamed Diame The senegal international can score some great goals and makes the midfield tick.
3. Victor moses. The young winger can beat a man for fun and on occasions provides goals and assits he's also won Wigan penaltys this season and has been crucial in the absence of last season's star man Charles N'Zogbia

The manager
Roberto martinez
The young spanish man has done quite well at wigan if you consider the money he has had to spend not alot in truth but he has made some very good buys such as Al habsi Diame Moses Mcarthy and Beausejour also players such as Sammon and Di santo still look like they can provide they just need the games. Also martinez who is nicknamed by the wigan supporters as Bobby has done well with the young players a few of them have played in cup matches and have looked ok especially Jordan Mustoe and Callum
Mc mannaman remember the names!

Can they stay up?
Anything is possible in this mad mad game, and wigan have sometimes achevied the impossible , for example Wigan hadnt won back to back games all season last season until the last two games of the season come around and wigan have to win the last two games and guess what ! They did aswell. I think Wigan will stay up because tey have the experiance in the squad and many players at Wigan have done it all before.

Predictions Week 1

The predictions game is back and has now got a new format! We'll select all the Premier League games + a few big games from all over the world. If you predict the right outcome (win, draw, loss...) you get 3 points, if you predict the right score, you get 5 points. There might also be a miscellaneous question. If you get that right you get 4 points. Every week, we'll also have a special guest, either our friends or anyone involved in football (like the players).

Week 1:

Special Guest: Daniel White. The two admin's best friend. He's a big Wigan Athletic fan and has a season ticket along with Tom Horn.

Adebayo Akinfenwa! (I made it on Paint)

Whitey:

Arsenal 2-1 AC Milan

Birmingham 1-2 Chelsea

Tottenham 1-1 Man Utd

Liverpool 2-2 Arsenal

Blackburn 1-2 Aston Villa

Man City 3-0 Bolton

QPR 1-2 Everton

Stoke 2-0 Norwich

WBA 1-1 Chelsea

Wigan 8-0 Swansea (di Santo hattrick of course)

Newcastle 2-1 Sunderland

Fulham 1-1 Wolves

Bayer Leverkusen 1-2 Bayern Munich

Tom Horn:

Arsenal 3-1 AC Milan

Birmingham 1-1 Chelsea

Tottenham 1-0 Man Utd

Liverpool 1-1 Arsenal

Blackburn 0-0 Aston Villa

Man City 5-0 Bolton

QPR 2-2 Everton

Stoke 3-1 Norwich

WBA 1-1 Chelsea

Wigan 3-0 Swansea

Newcastle 2-1 Sunderland

Fulham 0-0 Wolves

Bayer Leverkusen 3-3 Bayern Munich

Vishal Chahwala:

Arsenal 3-2 AC Milan

Birmingham 1-0 Chelsea

Tottenham 2-1 Man Utd

Liverpool 2-1 Arsenal

Blackburn 2-0 Aston Villa

Man City 4-1 Bolton

QPR 2-1 Everton

Stoke 1-0 Norwich

WBA 1-1 Chelsea

Wigan 0-8 Swansea (Àngel Ràngel hattrick of course)

Newcastle 2-1 Sunderland

Fulham 2-0 Wolves

Bayer Leverkusen 2-2 Bayern Munich

Next week it's Adebayo Akinfenwa!

Comment your scores to challenge to experts and be in with a chance of being on our website.

Should Chelsea Sack AVB?

You only have to look at the managers that have gone through Chelsea's revolving door over the last decade to know there is a very fine line between success and failure at Stamford Bridge.

Avram Grant was whiskers away from sealing a treble, Carlo Ancelotti went from hero to zero in just 12 months, while Luiz Felipe Scolari found out what happens when you have a bad January.

Andre Villas-Boas may not even make it until then, but should he stay or should he go?

Two reasons to go…

Poor organisation
They have already conceded 31 goals this season. Only 5 teams, all in the relegation battle, have conceded more at home and for all of Villas-Boas' eye for details, he can't get his back four working as a unit and still struggles to find his best forward line.

 

Underachieving

It may be Villas-Boas' first season but he has made a worse start than any other manager in the Roman Abramovich era.

Two reasons to stay...
Too early to judge
To question Villas-Boas' future after just 26 league games is madness. Mourinho's instant success at Chelsea has become an unfair bar for his successors to try and reach. His success at Porto was no fluke.

Squad Problems

The superstars in Chelsea team have already reached their peak but are now getting older. With hallmarks of Mourinho's Chelsea still around the club, Villas-Boas is going to need more than one summer in the transfer market to define his own team that doesn't contain yesterday's stars or expensive flops from previous regimes - not mentioning any names...

Match report wigan 0-0 aston villa

Wigans biggest home attendance all season wasnt enought to inspire wigan to a victory in a decent game at the Dw stadium.

The game started with wigan playing some nice passing but failing to create and convert chances Aston villa grew in to it as the first half whore on it was still goaless at the break wigan created one chance but macarthy was unable to strike a chance from 6 yards out cleanly enough.

The second half started in a simalar fashion wigan applying the pressure but no real cutting edge upfront ,however villa where growing into the game and Al habsi was forced into a save from a Gardner effort where Wigan going to be punished for missed oppotunities?

Darren Bent was forced off on a stretchur after he hurt his knee in a challenge with Altolin Alcaraz.

Midway through the second half Villa made a change Heskey was brought on for Marc albrighton this brought the villa fans to sing "you dont know what your doing" to Alex Mcleish

Wigan where still pressing but it was starting to look like it wasnt goin to be it was corner after corner and Jean Beausejour was taking them well and looking dangerouss out on the wing but 0-0 it finished.

Monday Madness!

Not much madness this week...

He's worse than Yakubu!

Flamengo striker Deivid added another howler to his catalogue of misses in his side’s narrow Guanabara Cup semi-final defeat to with Vasco da Gama. You know how much I hate Yakubu for his horror miss in the World Cup, but this guy is shocking.

The 32-year-old forward has built up something of an unenviable reputation for missing sitters, and it seems his curse in front of goal struck with a vengeance as he squandered an open goal from three-yards out.

The video on the left is the miss and the one on the right is a compilation his his worst misses.

Brazil crush Spain - with their new ad
Brazil have gone head to head with world champions Spain in launching their new kit manufacturers' adverts at the same time - with Brazil coming out on top. Nike's advert, launched on Monday, features Brazil - in yellow - against Brazil - in blue. The Adidas advert for Spain's new Euro 2012 second kit was launched 24 hours after Brazil's, and strikes a more sober tone. Their film has only been available 24 hours longer than the Spanish one, but has gathered over 1.8 million hits, compared to Spain's paltry
42,000.

Not so Incredible Hulk
Porto issued a complaint to UEFA about the behaviour of Manchester City supporters on Wednesday night – for the heinous act of suggesting that their striker Hulk did not have super powers. Chelsea are interested in signing the Brazilian striker. Porto have said they want £85m for him. I think it's a rumour.

Team knowlege test week 2

This week we test your knowlege on recently crowned carling cup champions Liverpool!

1.Who wears the Number 18 For the reds

2.What is the name of their famous Stadium?

3.How much did they pay Newcastle for Andy carroll

4. Who is their manager?

5. Who missed a Penalty in their 0-0 draw at wigan in December?

England where improvement is needed.

Well obviosly at the moment our national side have no boss or captin that certinatly isnt ideal with a crucial tournement just around the corner

Fabio cappello's exit was suprising in a way but has opend a door of opportunity for a english boss to manage the team and bring the youngstars through which it undoubtubly what as a nation england need if they hope to have a chance at world cups and European championships.

The next manager?

Its a two horse race for the job it looks like ethier Stuart Pearce or Spurs boss Harry Rednkapp will be offerd the job Pearce will take charge of the up comming Friendly against Holland

Next captin

I think Scot Parker should be given the new england captincy he is never in the press for the wrong reasons unlike numerous other candidates and also he is a great pro and someone who whould inspire the younger internationals

The 25 man Squad i whould pick for the Netherlands match

GK
Joe Hart (Man city)
Ben Foster (West brom)
Scott Carson (Bursaspoor)

DF
Kyle walker (Spurs
Micah Richards (Man city)
Phill Jones (Man united)
Rio Ferdinand (Man United)
John terry (Chelsea)
Micheal Dawson (Spurs)
Leighton Baines (Everton)
Ashley cole (Chelsea)


CM
Steven gerrard (Liverpool)
Frank Lampard (Chelsea)
Scott Parker (Spurs)
Gareth Barry (Man city)

Wingers
Daniel sturridge (Chelsea)
Alex oxlade Chamberlin (Arsenal)
Ashley young (Man united )
Adam Johnson (Man city)

Strikers
Danny welbeck (Man united)
Frazier Cambell (Sunderland)
Darren bent (Aston villa)
Bobby Zamora (Qpr)

The starting line up i whould play

Hart
Richards Jones. Dawson. Baines/cole

Parker Barry

Sturridge Gerrard. Ao chamberlin
Welbeck/cambell

I think this is the ideal friendly to play some of our younger or less experienced players and see how they fare.

Why no Rooney?
Welll rooney will miss two of the three group matches so we need to get used to life without him.

Why start with all those youngsters??

As i said before we need all the young players such as welbeck , Sturridge , Oxlade Chamberlin , Jones etc to have as many caps as possible before the tourdement starts especially as some are aiming to be on the plane to Poland and Ukraine and each of thise players are playing well for their respective clubs.

Weekend review

Missed any footie this weekend? Yes ? Well your gonna regret it get the highlights up! What a weekend!.

To start after years and years of angry waiting.... ( HASHESKEY HAS SCORED A HATRCK!?!)Sorry we cant say heskey has scored a hat trick yet im afraid but we can say that liverpool have finally won a trophy after beating championship side Cardiff City on penalties Cardiff where superb on te day but liverpool just edged it in all honesty.

And it didnt stop there Arsenal looked poor at sunderland a week ago but today they beat Harry Rednkapps spurs 5-2 despite bieng 2-0 down at one point. Surely thats Spurs' title hopes over for one season

In other premier league games this weekend A late Ryan Giggs goal saw Man united win 2-1 at Norwich, Aston villa held wigan to a 0-0 Draw at a buzzing Dw stadium, Man city beat blackburn Rovers 3-0 at the Etihad to remain top , Fulham got a vital win at local rivals qpr , Martin Oneills Sunderland where thrashed 4-0 at a on form West brom side, and terry connors rain as Wolves Boss started with a impressive 2-2 draw at Newcastle United.

Wigan v aston villa match preview

Kick off 3pm Dw stadium
.
Match Preview
Roberto Martinez's first game in charge of Latics was against Aston Villa on the opening day of the 2009/10 season when a super strike from Hugo Rodallega and a well-worked goal from Jason Koumas gave Latics the 2-0 win.
Strangely, there has been just one win for the home side in this fixture in the Premier League, that was the reverse fixture at Villa Park back in October. But this fixture almost guarantees goals with the two sides only ever having played out a goal-less draw on one occasion.
Wigan Athletic are looking to build on the fantastic win at the Reebok Stadium against fellow strugglers boltkn last time out while Aston Villa have not won in four in all competitions. With Wigans' nearest rivals all having tough fixtures this weekend could see them climb out of the bottom three for the first time for a long time.
Team News
Roberto Martinez, not for the first time this season, has a fully fit squad to choose from with Callum McManaman having shaken off a back complaint in Oman. A number of unnamed members of the squad have also recovered from a virus.

Richard Dunne will miss the game through the shoulder injury he picked up against Manchester City. Ciaran Clark is another long term absentee not expected back until late March. Barry Bannan (ankle) is rated at 50-50 and could be available after picking up his injury in the reserves.
Head to Head aston Villa have the slight edge over Wiganin terms of previous league meetings with five wins to Latics four, with four draws. Last time the two sides met at Villa Pa rk in October was the first time that the home side has won the game. When there has been a winner previously, it has always been the away side.
Hot Shots
Wigan Athletic
Franco Di Santo - 4Jordi Gomez - 4Ben Watson - 4
Aston Villa
Darren Bent - 10Gabby Agbonlahor - 6Martin Petrov - 4
Last Line ups
Wigan Athletic (v Bolton [A] W2-1): A Al Habsi, G Caldwell, E Boyce, M Figueroa, A Alcaraz, J Beausejour, V Moses, J Gomez (H Rodallega, 75), J McArthur, J McCarthy, F Di Santo (D Jones, 89).Subs not used: A Crusat, R Stam, B Watson, M Pollitt, M Diame.
Aston Villa (v Man City [H] L0-1): S Given (N Baker, 90), A Hutton, C Cuellar, R Dunne, J Collins, S Petrov yellow card, M Albrighton (S Ireland, 78), G Gardner, D Bent, R Keane, E Heskey (C N'Zogbia, 69) Subs not used: B Guzan, S Warnock, A Weimann, B Bannan.