Teimourian masterclass further highlights weaknesses

Last updated : 08 April 2007 By Paul Farrington
A bright start to the match from the Latics as seems to be the case every week was proceeded by a second half display of shoddy defending and woeful forward play.

For the first 35 minutes of the match the Laticsad by far the best of it and looked dangerous, playing some neat possession football in key areas of the Bolton half.

Emile Heskey broke the deadlock when he tapped over the line from close range after the half-hour mark.

It wasn't to last however, and as the Latics so often do, they switched off and focussed on defending their 1-0 lead.

Bolton came back into the game and equalised through Nicolas Anelka fter some shambolic defending gifted him with a three yard tap in.

Midfield Masterclass: Andranik Teimourian
The defending was to get worse in the second half and Bolton came into the game more. Midfielder Andranik Teimourian was inspirational in the middle for the Trotters and aside from his brace, he was at the heart of Bolton's play, both defensive and going forward.

It was unsuprising when he latched onto Diouf's through ball and calmly slid the ball under John Filan for his first. Despite Diouf appearing to be offside, Teimourian was allowed free reign to gallop forward unmarked, surely a sign of Paul Scharner lacking match fitness.

His second was another case of poor marking. The Iranian midfielder was allowed to ghost in unmarked behind Ryan Taylor at the back post and nod home Kevin Davies' cross.

The Latics were certainly missing captain Arjan De Zeeuw at this point.

Substitutes Henri Camara and David Cotterill were little better with both looking disinterested, and that's putting it politely.

On the positive side of things, Antonio Valencia was in scintilating form on the right hand side of midfield. He was the only Wigan player who looked dangerous and didn't deserve to be on the losing side.

Player Ratings

John Filan 7, Ryan Taylor 6, Leighton Baines 5, Matt Jackson 5, Fitz Hall 5, Antonio Valencia 9, Lee McCulloch 5, Josip Skoko 6 (David Cotterill 1), Paul Scharner 6, Emile Heskey 6, Caleb Folan 5 (Henri Camara 2).

There are serious issues that need addressing before the trip to Villa Park on Monday with yesterday's display a sharp reminder of the Christmas period when the Latics couldn't win a game, and didn't even look like doing.

Half of the side wants to win, the other half wants to pick up their pay packets. Wake up and smell the coffee boys, you may have the talent but you lack the stomach for a fight.

Here are the thoughts of the two managers.

Paul Jewell

"We are certainly in a dogfight now. But I thought we played well in the first half as we had lots of free kicks and lots of corners, but then we conceded a goal at a bad time. The second half was a scrappy derby game and they took their chances.

"We looked disjointed once they scored the second, it did not look like we wanted to get back in it and we never looked like threatening their goal in the second half. For all the pressure we had, we never worked their goalkeeper hard enough.

"We have conceded goals too easily when we were under pressure and we were not doing that in the recent run of wins we had. When things went against us we need be able to roll our sleeves up more, we have to fight and dig deep, and there will be more twists and turns.

"It all depends how other results turn out, but with six games to go, it is still in our hands. Nobody thought West Ham would win at Arsenal and there will be more twists. But we cannot feel sorry for ourselves, we have to dust ourselves down for Aston Villa."

Sam Allardyce

"We made hard work of it in the first half by not playing in the areas that we knew would trouble Wigan, we only did that in the last ten minutes or so, so we saw the way forward from there having got a goal back. We missed a couple of real sitters just before half-time but managed to get one and of course in the second half we waited for the right opportunities.

"Wigan are going to force the issue at 1-1, trying to get the win, and we had to expose the areas that they leave behind them and we did that exceptionally well, particularly with the passing and the running of Andranik Teymourian and his two finishes.

"A fantastic win and a really, really difficult win for us and of course our first win against Wigan in five matches. They had been a bit of a bogey team for us but coming from 1-0 down, no matter where you are, is a big, big result."