Wigan Athletic 0-1 Manchester City

I would have wrote this last night, yet when I return from the game, I was in no mood to write about what I saw unfold before my very eyes. On a cold January night I was quite looking forward to what I hoped would be a well fought open game, with some beautiful passing and moving.

Yet what I saw, and many thousands of others who watched the game at home in the stands, was 22 football players, play totally below there standard and the game really sluggishly drag to a 1-0 defeat to a Wigan side, that had its worse performances of the season.

The changes to the line up were understandable, anything from this game would be important, and like many of the fans around me where saying, we might as well b****y go for it. So with that in mind, the first ten minutes looked like Martinez and the lads were up for the fight.

Rodallega and Moses causing the majority of the problems, looking to try and work the ball wide before cutting inwards to open up the gap, that Stefan Savic was lovingly leaving open for one of our players to walk into. You could see Why Zabaleta was in the team though. His work rate and effort kept most Wigan attacks down the left hand side quite, even with a dodgy center back along side him.

At the other end, we were looking fairly strong. Caldwell showing my example that hard and fair would be the tackling from Wigan and really, it showed by Manchester City's unwillingness to get too close to many of our players. There is however one fool and for Manchester City that was Edin Dezko, any tackle where he lost the ball, he ended up on the floor.

With inside the first twenty minutes, half of it must have been on the deck for the striker.

Yet the game went on and really neither team forcing much of an issue on the other. Ali Al Habsi only had to cover a long range effort that came towards the Wigan goal from Gareth Barry, while Jordi Gomez would have been better off at home.

Yet just after the half hour mark we saw a goal. Dezko again going down easily in the corner, after Caldwell stood strong against the forward. The referee giving a freekick which to me it shouldn't be, but that is a different matter. The resulting free kick was whipped in by Silva, before being headed home by Dezko.

First shot on target and first goal for Manchester City.

A lackluster Wigan side didn't really have much in response. Just before half time Victor Moses came to life getting to the byline before squandering the chance to pull the ball back for Rodallega to tap in. So Wigan went in 1-0 down at the break.

Second half and again Wigan started the brighter of the two sides, yet we couldn't work the ball through the City defence. None was willing to take a long range shot, instead we saw the continual passing from one side to the other which never gets you anywhere.

Manchester City on the other hand were finding gaps in the Wigan defence as we pushed forward, and if it hadn't been for a mix of good goalkeeping and defending, along with their bad finishing the scoreline could have been more.

First Aguero managed to wriggle his way past players, after three successive blocks, before running out of steam and the ball being taken of his toes and rolling back to Ali Al Habis. While the goalscorer missed a clear open goal after being found in the center of the box by James Milner.

Down the other end, and Wigan's best chance of the match fell to James McCarthy. A brilliant passing move from Moses to Rodallega to flicking it through for McCarthy, whos well placed shot, took the slighest of touches of Joe Hart before rolling out for a corner.

Now for the comical part of the match. As Wigan pushed forward with waves of pointless attacks. Back sat Figeroua on half way, watching Aguero. After one attack Hart received the ball and sent it long towards Aguero. Figs went to head the ball, before completely missing timing his jump. You could see the reaction in his face and suddenly his hand shot up like he was in class to smash away the ball.

Oh dear. The inevitable had to becoming surely. Yellow card awarded by the referee. Sorry but how much more blatant a hand ball you want. Okay Figs was only on half way, but by the law of the game he should of walked. Instead the referee made himself a laughing stock to both sets of fans.

So it could have been a much worse scoreline at the end of the day. Yet a poor and inept Wigan performance only saw us lose 1-0 to the league leaders and the favorites to be league champions. I will admit it wasn't their day either, but it shows that on some degree we are progressing.

Next weekend if we step up our game, and pull together three points will be a no brainer.