Wow, that is a disaster for Reading. The winner of that game would have taken a huge step as I still think those two will be in a 17th-18th race. And Wigan have shown that they have enough quality to make it today, as long as they can show two or three more good performances this season I think they will survive now.
Reading and Wigan will be playing pass the baton for the rest of the season. One of them will be relegated...hope Reading stay up out of the two.
Wigan are an under rated side. Both Reading and Wigan tend to perform better as the season progresses but I think Reading may have blown it with the red card today.
The way its going at the moment it seems that QPR and Villa are as good as down and Wigan and Reading will fight it out for the last relegation spot. I am happy with that, although Blackburn did pull away from the bottom over XMas last year only to drop like a stone again so not counting any chickens just yet!
Wigan have some good players in there, but a really poor defense in my opinion. They play with 3 centre-backs, but they still look so penetrable. Martinez is a good manager, and I like the formation he's chosen to play, but he really needs to get some better defenders in.
Just had a look at their roster, and given that they defeated an army of orcs, you'd think that they could keep ten guys and a ball from breaking them down: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wigan_Athletic
See what I mean about their defense though? Gollum and Gimli aren't going to be winning anything in the air.
Some people (and dwarves, and...whatever Gollum is) play above their size, though. Lots of desire in that grouping, and having the all-seeing personification of evil backstopping things ought to help one grind out some clean sheets.
It helps that they've managed to get Sauron on loan from Atletico Madrid, but I've never even heard of Gil-Galad. Where did they get him from? I'd also worry about their wingbacks, as Boromir and Grima both lack a bit of pace and may let wingers get in behind them.
Gollum [the artist former known as Sméagol] is from a folk who were hobbit-like, though they lived by the river. Normally, hobbits don't like water at all really, so Sméagol's lot were an off-shoot. Gollum would be dynamite once he slipped that Ring on, I reckon. He'd make Messi/Ronaldo look s***. And Adam, I'm afraid.
Judging via motd highlights.... Wigan played some nice stuff, but, they were allowed so much time and space by Reading it was easy. From what I saw of QPR, they do not have goals or enough work rate to challenge game in-game out. Villa looked decent on the break at times, but look like they are relying on Weimann and Benteke to pull them out.
Yep, well summed up. You would have thought Reading would have watched us dominate Wigan with high pressing and taken note...
Some teams just aren't capable of pressing that hard without getting fatigued, making silly mistakes or getting caught out of position. Our fitness levels were quite clearly better than those of any other team in the Championship last season (probably to Nigel's credit) and so we were capable of perfecting that style of play. If Reading were to attempt to emulate that style, there's a chance they'd get torn apart.
I don't want to talk too soon, with plenty of points left to play for.... But, if we can continue at the level we've been playing and keep our most important players injury free, then we should have enough to finish above those four with a few games to spare.
