Wigan Athletic reviews....

[ACDon]

Certainly not the start we had all hoped for but Wigan looked a decent well organised side who will surely be there or thereabouts when the promotion places are decided come the business end of the season.

Despite the defeat there were quite a few positives to be taken, we seem to have a very promising young goal keeper in Lee Nicholls who deservedly won the MOTM award, it was a bold decision made by RN to name him as our number 1 this season, still at a young age to be given the job, the big test will be how he responds when he has a poor run of form which will happen at some stage, but the early signs look good. In front of him he has a strong defence, with two big centre halves and good full backs, who we know are both capable of better than we saw yesterday.

From what we saw yesterday (and this is very evident in the match stats), we don't seem to be creating enough clear cut chances, 54% possession with 6 shots at goal and only one on target, compared to Wigan who had 14 shots on goal with 6 on target. We wont be playing sides as strong as Wigan every week and I'm pretty sure this problem will be addressed. I was disappointed to see how many long high balls we played into the Wigan box, was it Dan Burn's birthday? A 5ft 9" (estimate) striker isn't going to get much joy against a 6ft 7" (estimate) defender with service like that.

Looking forward to our next few games, there have been a lot of changes made and Rome wasn't built in a day. I think we will have a much better idea of where we are heading come the end of September.

[Furzdonny]

For me, more negatives than positives, although I grant that it is early days.

Nicholls & Cisse were the positives, I thought Lewie & George W struggled, Ariyibi had a quiet game, Tshibola's distribution was too slow and Seager was ineffective up front. I thought at the time that Wigan's sending off was too harsh, but on seeing the replay as below it is a clear straight leg that could have broke Georgie's leg or injured his knee.

Red Card MK Dons v Wigan 05.08.17.png (43.93 KiB) Viewed 896 times

Wootton was last man so was also a red card and so despite the flak the referee got, he got it right (twice).

[ACDon]

For me, more negatives than positives, although I grant that it is early days.

Nicholls & Cisse were the positives, I thought Lewie & George W struggled, Ariyibi had a quiet game, Tshibola's distribution was too slow and Seager was ineffective up front. I thought at the time that Wigan's sending off was too harsh, but on seeing the replay as below it is a clear straight leg that could have broke Georgie's leg or injured his knee.

Red Card MK Dons v Wigan 05.08.17.png

Wootton was last man so was also a red card and so despite the flak the referee got, he got it right (twice).

Yes, I felt I was pretty much alone in saying, I thought the Ref had a good game. Robbie Nielson said the Ref was wrong to book players so early in the game, yet people are always questioning the consistency of Refs. If a player commits a booking offence he should be booked regardless of the time in which the offence is committed, otherwise you end up with a situation where players know they can get away with offences early in the game but get booked for the same offences later in the game.