Mugged by the Latics

This won't take long. After the disappointment of the FA Cup, then dropping a point to Leicester in what I reckon were controversial circumstances (should Wes Morgan have been sent off? should they have had a penalty? should the penalty have been retaken because of encroachment by the goal scorer?) and then being out-played by the Clarets, I was hoping for at least a fine performance against Wigan Athletic who rolled up at the CG bang in form, having won four and drawn one of their last six matches. In contrast Forest haven't won in the last three, all of which means the points in the bank keeping us in the playoff places are slowly being eaten up and Wigan, Reading and others are clustering just under those playoff positions.

Wigan won the game at the DW earlier in the season. Reidy scored first with a fine free kick, then they scored from a penalty and fine strike from Gomez.

Absentees this afternoon were Guy Moussi who had to return to France for personal reasons and Darius Henderson who was just officially unavailable (he was found not guilty, so his absence is temporary, thank goodness). In came Lichaj from injury, Cox, Majewski (back from Poland) and Jonathan Greening for his first start in living memory. Replaced were Collins, Djebbour and Abdoun.

Wigan came out in their all black away kit, which wouldn't have been allowed years ago before the referees started  going all fashion conscious and turning out in a variety of colourful outfits.  The game started and it soon became apparent that we were just a tad short of confidence. Plus it looked just what it was, a patched up team playing together in that formation for the first time. Much has been made of our injury problems, but Wigan have one or two missing, too. However, as befits a team only just out of the Premier League who have oodles of cash from parachute payments, their backup squad members are very proficient players. One of those squad members was returning player James Perch, a product of the Forest academy, who left us to go to Newcastle for a very decent fee. He was roundly criticised just before he left us after a particularly pathetic display against Blackpool in the second playoff game, when we were defeated yet again in the playoffs. But since then has added to his reputation after some competent displays for Newcastle and Wigan.

Despite our ragged start, Cox had a golden chance on 12 minutes. Mackie pressurised their full back on the right. He put in a poor back pass which was well anticipated by Simon Cox. However, as usual in a one-on-one, our player made a mess of the chance, weakly pushing the ball across goal and wide. We keep doing this; forging clear chances early in the game, missing them and then allowing the opposition in to score first. Playing catch-up is the game at the moment. And so it proved once again. After a pretty even first half hour during which we finally managed to give as good as we got, they "created" a chance. It was so lucky; Gomez shot, rather tamely, and the ball was covered by Darlow. The ball just flicked against Jara, deflected onto Lascelles and then bounced right in front of Waghorn, who couldn't and didn't miss.

This left me rather deflated and the rest of the half passed fairly swiftly and tamely until just before time was up. Eric Lichaj sadly had a recurrence of his injury (sort of groin trouble, Billy is a bit vague on the subject) and this meant re-jigging the defence yet again. Halford went to full back and Collins came on in the middle.

Forest came out all guns blazing in the second half. First Mackie got right down to the goal line, but fired straight at the keeper. Then the goal. Mackie again attacked the full back and this time was  unceremoniously dumped  after getting past him. The free kick seemed to have fizzled out, but Cox, shielding the ball, pushed it back to Paterson, who banged the ball into the net. I think it may have taken a bit of a deflection, but who cares? After this the game takes on the air of a farce.

Wigan began to pressurise the Forest defence and, just after the hour, two defensive lapses presented Wigan with two goals. Then right on full time, Gomez, who must regard Forest as his lucky team, drove forward and from fully thirty yards lashed in a shot which must have moved miles in the air as Darlow sort of leapt in the air waving his arms about, but all he caught was thin air. One of those that you know is going in when you feel the sweet contact.

1-4 to the Latics and we were well beaten in the end. But, I must say, every game I am impressed by the effort the lads put in. All right, they lost, but it's no disgrace to lose to the better team on the day if you can honestly say you tried your best.

Onwards and, hopefully, upwards. Next week we go to Barnsley hoping for a good result, though they are scrapping for their lives. I have had to combine the two away games (Barnsley on Saturday and Middlesbrough on the Tuesday) into one away weekend as the cost and effort of driving up and down for two games is just not worth it. Plus I have grounds up North to visit and Middlesbrough is as far North as we go in the league this season.