Bruce i wrote this in the match thread this was my reasoning on the poor central midfeild display:
That was the type of win today that gets you into Europe. Really we couldnt have complained if had finished a draw but with the condidtions and the pitch i think it was a professional if not fortunate performance. If we had played another team outside the bottom five we would have struggled a little more. Wigan just dont have the Quality. Lescott and Osman were my man of the matches, Arteta played well today too. Our big players made the difference today and thats why you pay big money for the likes of Johnson and Lescott. There are a few players of form at the moment. People know im not a huge fan of Howard but i really hope his run of incosistent form ends soon, his confidence is low and its leading to hesitation, while i think his distribution could improve too. Carsley and Nevile both looked tired today but having said that i thnk Wigans tactics were spot on.
Credit to Wigan they showd a lot of desire and for a bit more quality and cutting edge could have got something out of the game. I think Bruce got his tactics spot on. They bypassed our midfeild five every chance they got. Either by playing balls over their heads or playing through the flanks. This essentially made Neville and Cars ineffective as a defensive sheild and as a result neither had a particularly outstanding game.
I think Lanzat did a great job marking Cahill out of the game too. I think Bruce pinpointed Jags not being particularly comfortable with defending high long balls into the box as a weakness and set up some of their attacking game to try and captilise on this weakness, though for me jags did well.
Again i think he pinpointed Hibbo and Valente as a possible weakness to exploit and make chances. Hence they used thier wingers to attack them which proved to thier best way best of making chances. As most of the danger came form the flanks iit again nulfied Cars and Neville in the centre and the game really passed the centre midfeild trio by. Credit to us though we stuck at it and our quality saw us through.
Moyesey got it right bringing on Vaghan and pushing Cahill back as i say because lanzaat marked him out of the game and with wigan useing the flanks and longballs to bypass central midfeild there was no need for to defesive midfielders which Moyesy clocked onto.
Good away win in difficult circmstances but for me it could have been a draw, but we were more clinical and had more quality then Wigan which eventually saw us through.
