Wigan Athletic away Tuesday 26/11/24

[GrangeParkCobbler]

A Tuesday night round trip of 280 miles sees the Cobblers head to Wigan and their wonderfully named Brick Community Stadium.

The Latics are sitting one point and one place below us in the table having played one game less.

Following on from Cambridge, Wigan are also relative newcomers to the Football League, they won their place when they beat Southport in the election back in 1978. Having played in the Cheshire and Lancashire Leagues prior to the Northern Premier League football in Wigan really took off when supporter and multi-millionaire Dave Whelan bought the club in 1995. Under his stewardship they left Springfield Park and moved to the 25,000 capacity JJB Stadium (later DW Stadium) in 1999. Progression through the leagues came from 1997 when they won promotion from the fourth tier to the Premier League in 2005. Eight seasons at the top level followed during which time they won the FA Cup in 2013 and were runners up in the League Cup in 2006, with European Football coming to Wigan in 2014. Whelan left Wigan in 2018 after 25 years and just tow years later the Football Club were in administration, with seasons in the Championship and League 1 having won the League 1 title in 2016, 2018 and 2022 but being relegated back there again soon after each promotion.

This season a lacklustre start to the campaign following on from last seasons 12th placed finish. They, like us have only won four league games, just two of them at home against Crawley and Peterborough. They are the lowest scorers at home with just five goals from their seven games, however they have only conceded four too, a league best equalling mark. They picked up their first win in 6 league games on Saturday with a 1-0 win at Barnsley.

Shaun Maloney is currently in charge of the team, he has picked up 34 wins in 93 games since taking over in January 2023 after Kolo Toures winless 9 game stint.

Thelo Aasgaard is their leading scorer with five goals, four of them in the league including the winner on Saturday. Dale Taylor who is on loan from Forest has scored two league goals, both of which came in the 3-0 win over Borough.

No Cobblers connections in their squad although they do have a "Luke Chambers" and also a "Matt Smith" amongst their number, as well as a Maleace Asamoah!

We have met 39 times over the years with The Latics well out in front with 20 wins to our six. We lost there last season 2-1 as late goals by Hughes and McManaman overturn Sam Hoskins opener for The Cobblers. The return game at Sixfields ended in a 1-1 draw, Hoskins again on the scoresheet with Josh Magennis netting the leveller.
We picked up our only win at this ground back in 2021 when goals from Rose, Hoskins and Caleb Chukwuemeka led us to a 3-2 victory with all of our other five games at the DW ending in defeat.

Aaron Bannister is down to be the man in charge. He has only reffed about five EFL games having mostly whistled in the National League before this. In 12 games this season he has flashed 46 yellow cards along with 3 reds. Neither team has previously encountered this referee.

[Deepcut Cobbler]

Wigan Athletic FC (First Team) v Northampton Town FC (First Team)
Football League 1   
Referee: Bannister, Aaron
Assistant Referee: Clayton, Samuel
Assistant Referee: Bacon, Matthew
Fourth Official: Herczeg, Adam

[spqr]

Maleace is Derek's son.  There are loads of videos on the net where Derek shows off his son's skills.  Best video is of Derek describing his trial etc at the Cobblers.   Hopefully it is still on Youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/@Freshballerz/videos

[Observing]

12-0, Cobblers.

[WasRambo]

Me and the boy will be there, seeking the elusive viewing of an away win

[Gustavo Palcrice]

I wonder if wigan beat them.

[west stand oap]

It would be a surprise if this was a high scoring game as we are creating few chances and Wigan have only scored 13 goals in their 15 games, only Stevenage (our next opponents) with 11 have scored fewer. Also they have the lowest goals per game ratio of all clubs in the division and only Wrexham have conceded fewer goals. Earlier in the season they went 6 EFL games without conceding a goal including 4 0-0 draws, whenever I have seen him I have been impressed by their GK Sam Tickle who is a product of their youth system. & of the 13 goals they have scored came in 2 games, winning 3-0 at home to Peterborough and 4-0 at Bristol Rovers so 1n their other 13 games they have only scored 6 goals.

At home they have won 2 (Crawley and Posh), drawn 2 (Stevenage and Exeter) and lost 3 (Charlton, Mansfield and Wycombe) and Shrewsbury and Burton are the only teams with fewer home points, they have scored 5 home goals and conceded 4 so only 9 goals in the 7 games. On Saturday they had a good 1-0 win at Barnsley but that was their first success in the last 6 games. They have failed to score in 8 of their 15 games and scored more than 1 goal 5 times, similarly they have kept 8 clean sheets and have conceded more than 1 goal only 3 times.

In our 19 games at Wigan we have won 3, drawn 5 and lost 11. Again not expecting much change to our starting 11 with Eaves and Waggott to later come off the bench. We have been defensively sound recently with only conceding 4 goals in the last 7 games and if we can blunt the Wigan attack we could see our third consecutive 0-0 draw.

[Bingers]

This has got 0 - 0 written all over it. But when was the last time The Mighty Cobblers got three consecutive goaless draws?

See you all there. Wigan Kebabs all round.

[Manwork04]

This has got 0 - 0 written all over it. But when was the last time The Mighty Cobblers got three consecutive goaless draws?

See you all there. Wigan Kebabs all round.

Surely a pie comrade?

[TVOR]

Surely a pie comrade?

(google Wigan kebab  )

[DavCobb]

Thanks to Marvo's stats

2006 -2007

 6 Oct     A   Dean Court   League   Bournemouth     0-0        5,746
13 Oct     H   Sixfields   League   Bradford City             0-0        5,625
17 Oct     H   Sixfields   Trophy   Brentford                     0-0        2,088   

[Shoemender]

Thanks to Marvo's stats

2006 -2007

 6 Oct     A   Dean Court   League   Bournemouth     0-0        5,746
13 Oct     H   Sixfields   League   Bradford City             0-0        5,625
17 Oct     H   Sixfields   Trophy   Brentford                     0-0        2,088   

What about league only?
P.S. Look at the crowd at Bournemouth. What do they need a bigger ground for?

[Bingers]

(google Wigan kebab  )

 

[TPFKA Marvo]

What about league only?

I'm just looking at this for you, bit of a task. However just discovered it wasn't until the Cobblers played their 95th official game that they played out a goalless draw. Seems a lot doesn't it?

EDIT:

The last time the Cobblers played out 3 consecutive goalless league games was:

21/12/1990 v Cardiff City home
29/12/1990 v Gillingham away &
1/1/1991 v Doncaster home.

That is as far as I can see the ONLY time in their history the Cobblers have played out 3 consecutive goalless league games.

[therealpattcobb]

Interesting to think how IF we had a decent set-piece record how some of the 0-0s could change into 1-0 wins.

Both our recent 0-0s have been pretty fair results.

With some decent set piece returns we could actually maybe pick up some undeserved wins

Imagine if like Atkins' teams we ground out results with a scrappy set piece goal giving us all three points?

[Risdene]

Interesting to think how IF we had a decent set-piece record how some of the 0-0s could change into 1-0 wins.

Both our recent 0-0s have been pretty fair results.

With some decent set piece returns we could actually maybe pick up some undeserved wins

Imagine if like Atkins' teams we ground out results with a scrappy set piece goal giving us all three points?

The last time we scored regular set piece goals were when the twin threat of Guthrie and Horsfall operated together.

[DavCobb]

I'm just looking at this for you, bit of a task. However just discovered it wasn't until the Cobblers played their 95th official game that they played out a goalless draw. Seems a lot doesn't it?

EDIT:

The last time the Cobblers played out 3 consecutive goalless league games was:

21/12/1990 v Cardiff City home
29/12/1990 v Gillingham away &
1/1/1991 v Doncaster home.

That is as far as I can see the ONLY time in their history the Cobblers have played out 3 consecutive goalless league games.

I knew that....but didn't want to tread on your toes. 
Not the most enthralling Xmas run of games.

I didn't know it was the only time in our history as only went back to your 1990 table when it happened.

[TPFKA Marvo]

I knew that....but didn't want to tread on your toes. 
Not the most enthralling Xmas run of games.

I didn't know it was the only time in our history as only went back to your 1990 table when it happened.

I thought it would take me forever but I set up a formula to look through all 5578 results and it only came up with one set of 3. Took about 5 minutes in the end.

[Shoemender]

I'm just looking at this for you, bit of a task. However just discovered it wasn't until the Cobblers played their 95th official game that they played out a goalless draw. Seems a lot doesn't it?

EDIT:

The last time the Cobblers played out 3 consecutive goalless league games was:

21/12/1990 v Cardiff City home
29/12/1990 v Gillingham away &
1/1/1991 v Doncaster home.

That is as far as I can see the ONLY time in their history the Cobblers have played out 3 consecutive goalless league games.

Cheers Marvo. Won't happen tonight though as Roberts is going to open his account.

[Bingers]

I thought it would take me forever but I set up a formula to look through all 5578 results and it only came up with one set of 3. Took about 5 minutes in the end.

Bloody hell Marvo, Alan Turing would have been proud. If you were a few years older, you could have got a job at Bletchley Park and had a film made about you.