Wrong and fired up about it...

Well.  Thankfully that last post turned out to be premature.  I stand by most of those thoughts - maybe it wasn't so much a "a near-miraculous convergence of events" as it was just a gutsy (and lucky) game and a half of soccer.  But getting that out helped me cope with a couple of intense games.  Still, I absolutely can't let that post sit as my last word on the end of this season.


Survival Sunday was intense.  The Latics held on by their fingernails for most of the first half.  Once Birmingham fell behind in other action, that would have been enough, but Hugo Rodallega came through with just their third headed goal of the season.  The end result?  As Sky Sports points out, "Wigan remain the only team to have played in the English top-flight and not been relegated."

Boom.

So what to think about the team?  Next year's (Premier League!) Wigan Athletic will look different.  They have to capitalize on the value of some players - N'Zogbia, definitely, maybe Diame, but Sunday's heroics aside, I'm not sold that Rodallega has proven he deserves more.  Other than that, we have a young team.  With some smart signings (last summer's moves didn't really pan out so we're due), let's reclaim some level of respectability for more than our grit in relegation battles.

We do have another notable asset in Roberto Martinez.  Judging from the post-Survival Sunday buzz, he's a manager recognized as a smart soccer mind, committed to playing "the right way," and one of the sport's nice guys.  Pictures like the above of the players celebrating with him say it all to me, how his players feel about him.  He seems to have great rapport with old Dave Whelan, which is key for a team with little money to spare.  I do wonder if, at some point, keeping a small team like Wigan up will pad his resume for a more prestigious gig.  But for now, he seems committed, and if the time comes for him to move on, it will probably be on good terms.

It's really seemed like much more than a day, basically, since this all went down.  Who's ready for more?