Wigan away vs PNE review and short Huddersfield vs Man City review at the end.
Boring. All so boring. Preston started well. Played with lots of confidence and worked the ball well and Wigan looked uncomfortable. Robinson got the ball in the middle of the box, turned and brought down, penalty. Weak and 50/50 for me and probably not a penalty. Hugill takes the worst penalty, ever. No power, to the keepers left and in fairness, rebounds it back to Hugill who looked stagnated and missed the rebound trying to turn. Slow and rubbish. 0-0. That was it, Huntington did a hard challenge in the first half which was 50/50 again for a penalty so i'm sure Wigan fans will be annoyed. 0-0 Half Time and nothing happened second half shooting wise. Wigan broke free mid way through, Huntington and Cunningham got back and put pressure on the attacker, Bogle I think it was and Cunningham slide in so well with him one on one and worked an angle ready to score but he doesn't even get a shot away. Boring and rubbish. Nil nil. The point does no one a favour but sees PNE stay in the top half and will probably end up finishing in mid table and even a top half but Play offs are beyond them for me. For Wigan, they have a fight to stay up. They're the divisions lowest scorers and need goals to win. They didn't play bad yesterday, just lacked the odd bit of quality up front. So did Preston so 0-0 a fair result. It just wasn't pretty on the eye.
I thought Huntington and Cunningham were really good in defence yesterday but pushing up, a lot was to be desired. I thought Browning was mediocre with his defending and getting forward and is an awful crosser. Perhaps it's because he is a natural CB. Baffling. Cunningham's crosses weren't very good either but he was great at defending. Perhaps a 3-5-2 was needed yesterday with Cunningham at CB. The game lacked width. Horgan and McGeady looked ok but it just wasn't clicking and the Wigan CB had Hugill in his back pocket. Wigan were so good second half with closing down the second ball and that allowed them to play their normal game and they looked a lot better. They grew in confidence and perhaps, with a little more belief and shooting, may well have won. But 0-0 and everyone moves on. Tomorrow is another day and more matches ahead.
Talking of more matches, City were set to head to Abu Dhabi after the match against Monaco for warm weather training as they don't play next weekend with Utd postponed as they are in the cup. City could have had nearly 2 weeks rest until they played again but now they are in action on Tuesday against Monaco at home (preview will be up on Monday/Tuesday) and again for the cup replay on Tuesday again. The game looked boring yesterday and Hudders had a goal disallowed. City played with 3 CDM and struggled to create. Aguero tried his best, Nolito looked like he had a poor game and Navas is just bad. Navas' name should be in the dictionary under the word bad. He probably won't be seen in a match again this season or for City again. He's slowly just got worse and only offers one run down the wing and turns and then put bad balls in. Huddersfield made lots of changes and City could not beat it with a strong team out. Disappointing but two positives. Number one, Bravo looked better, saved shots and kept a clean sheet. In fact, the defence looked ok. The second, unlike Leicester and Burnley, who both went out to lower opposition, we are still in the cup and have a great chance next week at the Etihad to qualify. Neither team wants the extra game but oh well, I have something to look forward to next week. We also are in the hat for the quarter final draw. So are Huddersfield. I imagine both sides will look to see who they face before deciding who will feature and stuff. Do Huddersfield, going for promotion to the Premier League and gaining million want a game at say, Middlesbrough away or Spurs away knowing they're getting a load of money at the Etihad next week? It's local and they will take lots of fans. Do City want Spurs, Chelsea, Arsenal away? The ideal draw for City is a home match against one of the bigger teams but not Man Utd. Huddersfield will want to face Man Utd, home or away and be motivated. So I want a tie where Huddersfield won't be too bothered to go out and City will turn up and win. A home match against Arsenal or Spurs would do me. Away is a different matter as I think we would go out to them away. It's difficult. We will see.
A special shout out to Lincoln City, who I saw win on the big screen at the bar under the DW Stadium yesterday away at Burnley to become the first ever non-league side to reach the quarter finals of the FA Cup. I don't fancy City facing them. Imagine the scenes if they win. Good god. Lincoln do deserve a glamorous time though, or a winnable one. Millwall at Lincoln would do them I bet. Shout out to Millwall too, getting this far and doing so well. Knocking out the champions at the den. I'm looking forward to the draw tomorrow night. Monday motivation for me at work. I'll see you tomorrow or Tuesday for the preview to the big 1st leg of the Champions League at the Etihad.
