Firstly, we had a lot of bad luck in the first half, and that's a lot even for us, but you can't blame luck for everything, you make your own luck sometimes and "hoof ball" as we played in the first half did not help at all. 15 minutes gone and the referee intercepts a perfectly timed ball out from the back, but its not his fault, he only had 5 seconds to react. Reason 1 for the worst referee of the year award to Mr. Woolmer (I know its early, but he's definitely in for a shout). They score straight from the ref's involvement, 1-0. Typical. Down the other end 15 minutes later and Mr. Woolmer has a chance to even things up, Baxter is completely side swiped and would be through 1-on-1 if not for the challenge. Yellow, somehow. Reason 2. But again, you can't really blame the referee, he was quite some 10 feet away from the incident, and only had the help of one linesman to make his decision, oh well, we go on. Stroke of half time, Wigan break and find a free man at the front post. 2-0, as she wrote. The blades team go in at half time to a chorus of boo's, much deserved. We come out in the second half looking like we want to play football for the first time in I don't know how long, great. Adkins has said the right things and it looks to be taking effect. Now this is where the fans come into their own, oh how I love the fans. Not long into the second half and they break, I don't see the whole play as I'm the other end of the pitch, it looks like one of theirs has a little run, nobody puts a foot in, he beats what looks like 5 players and someone gets a shot away on target, 3-0. (Not young George's best performance) unlucky after a good spell of attacking football with the ball on the deck, but that's just bad defending for you. After this the fans get worse, but in all honesty the team deserve everything they get. However, its probably a good job we got one back when we did, 3-1, took the momentum with us and the chorus of "were shit" quietened down, for now. We carried on playing good (not great i might add, but well above average) on the ground, pass and move football. 10 minutes go by and i hear the cry for JCR.... I begged Adkins to see sense and leave things as they were, which he did as only one team looked in control and why change so early on in that situation? good management, trust your players. The cry for change kept coming, with every good attack it got louder. Until finally Billy silenced the shouts with a well worked goal finished off by a skeptical header, keeper flapped and could have done better, but it was in, 3-2 and game on. Good management again here, some managers would have brought on a big dopey forward and gone back to hoof ball in an attempt for a 3rd, but we kept shape and the right changes were made (still stand by the fact that JCR is a football con artist). Unfortunately at this point something snapped and the lads at the back got twitchy, hoof, hoof, hooooffff. I almost gave up hope until we had a good spell in their half, billy picked the ball up, beat his man and rocketed a shot towards the keeper, the save falls to the back post where Done picks up the pieces and slots it home (from an acute angle to say the least). 3-3, we could have gone on to win this one, and almost did with a few very decent efforts in the last few minutes. But it just goes to show, we DO actually have a team that can play football, its no Barcelona style passing but it works fine in the tin pot of L1. Wigan were broken in the second half, broken by a team who passed them off the park, which goes to show it might not be all doom and gloom after all. Tidy up the back 4 with a solid CB, trim the team of any stragglers and we could just have a good run and make up some ground on the teams above before too long.
Every player deserved subbing at half time but we did what was needed and it was a game of almost 2 halves, Billy was fantastic trying to get involved with everything, Done was Done and ran his socks off (finally a front 2 that works!?), Even McEveley deserves some praise, my god he's a liability at the back, but he can run with the ball, play good passes and can be credited as the main factor in the 2nd goal. the rest of the lads gained confidence throughout and its a shame that it took going 3 down to act and start playing football.
