I wonder if we'll hear any nonsense about Yossi not starting today as to why we barely pulled this one off. Probably not, I figure the memory vacuum will take care of all the Rafa rotation bashing. Anyhow, on to the match.
Wigan should be commended for a well-played, well-executed game plan. We were really lucky to come away with three points as they were the better side and missed a couple of relatively easy opportunities in front of the net.
Overall, we were not a top side. We seemed to lack motivation as a whole and were timid about scoring. Wigan stuffed the box when we had the best chances to score and our attempts to do so were characteristic of keystone cops. Our lack of ability to be creative, utilize the whole field, and movement off the ball was quite evident in these cases.
Individually, Yossi stole the show with an absolute class strike. I posted a video of it in an earlier post, but I'm not sure if it's working or not. The Israeli seemed to revitalize our side the minute he stepped onto the pitch, especially Gerrard.
Our defense was surprisingly appalling at times, particularly Hyypia. He talked about how he's never had pace earlier this week, but it's never really hurt his performance. Today it seemed to as Wigan quickly countered set plays which left the heavy-footed Finn well out of position. It forced Carra to make some tackles that frankly could have been called penalties, but were not.
We grinded out the win and I'm happy about that, but better sides would have at least drew us. I know I complained about Pennant not cutting inside enough, but he did it a little too much here and as a team, we failed miserably at using the entire pitch, especially the deep flanks.
Kuyt was simply not fit to wear the shirt. He really needs to dig deep and get more creative. I'm not sure what his issue was today, but he was our worse player by far. Anyhow, I gotta go. Cheers.
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