Aston Villa v Wigan Athletic, Villa Park, 10.12.2016 3pm.: Build up & Matchday Thread

[De Kuip]

Right, in an attempt to redeem myself and get back onto a winning thread-start footing, here goes:

Villa, fresh from a disappointing showing against Leeds United, host Championship strugglers, Wigan Athletic. Both teams joined the ranks of the Championship this year, but from different directions. Whilst Villa's fortunes upturned via the pocket of Tony Xia, and the appointment of Steve Bruce, Wigan are already talking about the "Relegation Dogfight" that they face, in order to avoid dropping back into League 1.

Long gone are the heady days of Dave Whelan's stewardship and his millions - memories reinforced for Latic's fans with the unveiling of a statue to him outside their ground - if only - they cry - we could have those days back again. Whilst Whelan's grandson is at the helm, not much other than the name remains the same - Rugby League is once again the success story, and the DW must be a happier place on alternate Saturdays when it's hosting Warriors fans, not Latics'.

Wigan have only managed 4 wins in 19 games, and in common with many teams in the lower reaches of divisions, struggle in front of goal. They do often have reasonable possession in matches, but fail to capitalise. A narrow home defeat against Derby last time out shows that they can be tough to break down, but are vulnerable from set pieces.

Villa fans will no doubt remember Steven Warnock - now captain at Wigan, who recently - whilst obviously talking up Wigan's chances, was nonetheless complimetary about his old club:

Latics skipper: We got to Villa Park with no fear on the back of some good away performances

"We go there full of confidence we can get a positive result""
Latics skipper Steve Warnock

Aston Villa v Wigan Athletic in the Sky Bet Championship Saturday December 10 2016
"Let's give the supporters something to take back up the M6" - skipper Steve Warnock
Warnock returns to Villa Park for the first time since leaving club in 2012
Away sales top 1,000 mark at time of publishing
Latics skipper Steve Warnock is going back to his former club on Saturday for the first time since he left in 2012. He says the whole Latics squad will go to Villa Park in confident mood.  

“On a personal note, Aston Villa is somewhere I enjoyed some good years and I have plenty of good memories, but we are going there to do a job and to come home on the back of a positive result.

“We were all really frustrated after Derby last week because it was a disappointing goal to concede from a set play and then we weren’t able to convert one of the chances we created in the second half especially when we dominated.

“But we must take the positives out of the performance in that we more than matched one of the division’s favourites who are in a tremendous moment of form and we need to take that into the game on Saturday.

“Our away form has been good of late, but in truth, it has been decent all season and it’s been a case of actually getting rewards for all the effort we’re putting in, which we weren’t doing at the start of the season.

“Even when you look back as far as Bristol City, Nottingham Forest, Norwich City, the games were all very different but we deserved to get something from them and never did.

“At least now, we have earned a couple of wins and a creditable draw in our last three games away from home and we will be looking to keep that run going on Saturday.

“Steve Bruce is a vastly experienced manager who’s been brought in to the club to try and reinvigorate it, and let’s face it, Villa are one of the really big clubs in terms of infrastructure, facilities, fanbase, they should be in the Premier League. Like everyone else in football, you have to earn that success, though, nothing comes easily.

“They will be looking to keeping their run going having won their last three at Villa Park but it’s up to us to try and keep the crowd quiet there. I know from personal experience what a great atmosphere the Villa fans can generate at home, but we need to feed off that too and use it as a motivation for us.

“Villa Park is a great arena and our players will relish going there and playing in an atmosphere like that.

“We’ll have a decent following down there and we go into the game knowing that we are capable of getting a positive result and hopefully giving those fans something to take home back up the M6”

Whilst it's a bit early to know any injury doubts (i.e. Baker's fitness) I assume that SB - who is up for manager of the Month award - will sort out the selection and tactical weaknesses that hamstrung us against Leeds.

With rumours of Rushian H-M being tracked by Rangers, and a swap deal of Jordan Rhodes for Ross McCormack, there are still plenty of off field talking points for the Villa faithful.

My feeling is that Wigan will keep it tight, and it might be as low scoring as a 1-0 to Villa (hope note, I want more for my 400 mile round trip than that!), but the flip side is that if we scored early, I think we could batter them. Fans will need to work hard to get the atmosphere going as Wigan fans will no doubt all arrive on a skateboard (TBF they've sold 1000+ tickets so far), exposing empty swathes of seating over in the naughty corner, as we saw for Blackburn.

UTV

[Trotters]

Great intro as always!

I'd read they were bringing 900 so the extra helps my GTC guess!

Hopefully Baker will be back.
Hopefully Gabby won't make another pointless appearance.
Hopefully Ayew won't either.
Hopefully Westwood has another good game and breaks his assist/goal drought. If he can't against Wigan then there really is little hope.

I can't see the game on TV anywhere so we'll win fo sho!

[deadbuzzardalive]

I feel that this one is a must win game. Can't afford to drop even more points behind the play-offs and fall below more teams. I was hoping we'd be in the top six by January but that's looking a tall order at the moment.

Think it might be a pretty close game, hopefully if so, we can scrape the win. Would be nice to thrash them, it's possible but just wonder if the team might be a bit nervous with the pressure of getting back on track after the Leeds loss.

Don't know if McCormack will play, but hopefully he can get going and get a couple of goals.

[NARLA24]

We will beat Wigan well i think. Someone needs a hammering from us and we need to bounce back from the defeat at Leeds.
3 nil for me, or maybe even more, so cmon Villa, lets have a great performance and a good win.

[Saunders82]

I hope all of our players look up and pass, to one of their team mates hopefully. This could be a score for us, bring it on.

[deadbuzzardalive]

We're in trouble if we can't beat Wigan. I'm starting to think that difference between Bruce and Di Matteo isn't as big as first seemed, and all there is between them is Bruce has had more luck.

[Saunders82]

Our trouble is the midfield, there is no creativity, no strength so we have to set up to cover this deficiency, also we havent as yet got a striker who is finding the net regularly. We all knew this we just have to grin and bear it, but boy its hard.

[Jae1411]

are we now playing with 1 central midfielder again

[De Kuip]

This is pretty shit 4 forwards on now and no midfield
Not feeling the love from K3

[Barabass]

Grealish scores a late goal!

[deadbuzzardalive]

Only three points off the play-offs now, progressing nicely. Shame Newcastle and Brighton keep winning. Good win, but by the sound of things need to improve on the performance.

[Saunders82]

It was a grim game, Wigan with 11 behind the ball, we just don't have the midfield to deal with that, but the 3 points are very welcome keeps us in there, roll on January lets sort this lot out.

[Barabass]

An ugly win is better than a loss by any means. We need to keep chipping away at those last 3 points to get in the top 6. We can't rely on teams above us to keep losing points, if they are losing to the teams around us. That loss to Leeds was a sickening blow, considering what the results table could have looked like by now, but the win today should help soften the blow.

[deadbuzzardalive]

Brief highlights...

http://www.skysports.com/watch/video/sports/football/competitions/championship/10691129/aston-villa-1-0-wigan

[De Kuip]

Got out of jail but tbf at least we did. Right, stage one of operation drive is half over and we achieved my predicted 1-0. Back down M5 in shit weather ready for the 12 hour mission to Mars on Tuesday. We'd better fecking win...

[AstonThriller]

It's these sort of wins that will all add up at the end of the season. When we were sat in the bottom three and Bruce came in I said we need to be in the top six or very close to it by january. So right now we're on track. And it's funny because before the game I said to myself "I want to see Ayew or Grealish stand up and make a contribution today", and boy did Jack oblige. Since he's moved inside he's really started to turn it on and hopefully more goals/assists will follow now.

In all honesty though I think these wins are perfect because we get the three points but it still shows Bruce just how much our team needs improving in a couple of weeks time. For me a left-sided attacker is a must and so is a central midfielder. Really looking forward to seeing how this team will be once our weak areas are improved.

Lastly it was good to get another clean sheet for a change!!..lord knows we need to improve in that area aswell.

[Dions_Bald_Head]

It's these sort of wins that will all add up at the end of the season. When we were sat in the bottom three and Bruce came in I said we need to be in the top six or very close to it. So right now we're on track. And it's funny because before the game I said to myself "I want to see Ayew or Grealish stand up and make a contribution today", and boy did Jack oblige. Since he's moved inside he's really started to turn it on and hopefully more goals/assists will follow now.

In all honesty though I think these wins are perfect because we get the three points but it still shows Bruce just how much our team needs improving in a couple of weeks time. For me a left-sided attacker is a must and so is a central midfielder. Really looking forward to seeing how this team will be once our weak areas are improved.

Lastly it was good to get another clean sheet for a change!!..lord knows we need to improve in that area aswell.

Spot on @AstonThriller - that was pretty much going to be my contribution this evening.

Let's hope the goal inspires Grealish (in a healthy way).

[FoxyAV]

It seems fitting that if we're going to play four strikers the goal should come from midfield.

I'd still like to see Andre Green or Corey Taylor playing on the wing opposite Adomah when we're playing Gestede. There's still no point having him on the pitch unless there are balls coming into to the penalty area and frankly, I'd rather see a winger on the wing than a striker.

[achilles]

That was a truly shocking game, lit up by one piece of magic from Grealish!
Glad we got 3 points but a game to instantly forget, not so much the soaking I got.

[DelboyVilla]

Win is a win.

Great goal from Jack, he needs to shoot more often.

Midfield weaknesses evident again! Roll on January!

[De Kuip]

My final thought on the game was that we still are way too slow in moving the ball around, and we must up the tempo at times it was pedestrian. We also don't use the full width or should I say don't feed the ball wide on enough ocassions. We also never seem to use the wide overlapping run from the fullbacks if they do run with the ball it's from a deep starting position. And Gardner should never, ever put on a Villa shirt again unless he's doing so in the stands as a supporter.

[deadbuzzardalive]

We've had plenty of games this season where we've come away with less than we deserved, so I guess it goes both ways. Plus Wigan were unbeaten in the last five games away from home, and also have a good record at Villa Park in recent years.

I'm just grateful for the three points, yesterday could have been a really bad day, if we had not have won and other results had gone against us. Starting to close the gap now, and although it doesn't seem likely, I'm still not writing automatic promotion off yet. If we can close the gap before the January fixtures then I think we will have an outside chance.

[Boldfinger]

great start then boring as hell for 60 minutes, beautiful bit of skill from Jack and 3 points in the bag.
thats what we have to do to get out of this division.
blues got smashed 4-0.

great weekend really!

[NARLA24]

3 points in the bag. Good. Get the Norwich thread going DK ya superstar you

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