As quite simply, my brain has genuinely stopped functioning after the weekend. And I’ve had no alcohol…
Your editor is going to Doncaster, so it means a proper match report for once, and I’ll pontificate a lot more then. But Wigan could have gone very, very wrong yet ended up going very right.
Yeah, if the Pie Eaters had needed a win it would have likely been a different story, but it was probably more pleasing to know that the team didn’t capitulate after it went 1-1.
Be honest, even those who felt we would get a draw before the game – this was still an unexpected result. I bet many were still looking nervously at the goal difference when they equalised.
But we came away from the DW Stadium with perhaps the best outcome (pro-rata) since we won at Ewood Park. Maybe you could argue Bradford away for that, although they were sinking faster than Amber Rudd’s career this morning…
It sounds like Long kept us in it, and he’ll be a big hole to fill in the summer (as TBH I don’t think we’ll see him in our colours next season). But playing two up front and our midfield being wardrobe free helped us a lot.
Funny that.
The upshot of this is that we only need one more point. Just repeat it to yourself ad nauseum until 10pm tomorrow, or 9pm on Saturday. Just do it silently though, unless you like people moving away from you on the train.
It does mean that we’ve got one more push against Donny tomorrow. We may be fatigued after the weekend, and as anyone who knows football will testify – that final point can often be the hardest one of the lot.
To the squad’s credit, it has knuckled down after the Good Friday debacle, and we’ve been unbeaten since then for a very good reason. Even if it’s merely down to having the proverbial gun to our head.
I’d like to think our momentum will carry us over the line, even if we’re grimacing like fuck. We’re going to collapse in a heap when the final burst of adrenaline wears off, but we can let the St John’s Ambulance carry us off after we’ve finished.
And there are too many metaphors in that previous sentence.
The job isn’t done yet, and to be honest I’d rather we not have to wait to Saturday to make sure. We should be safe, in fact if we go down we shouldn’t be sacking people but publicly executing them instead.
If I have one final concern now, it’s that we hit the wall before we’re secure. A number there on Saturday were saying how exhausted we look, certainly physically.
This has been a tough campaign anyway, and we’ve put a lot into it since Fleetwood. Eventually a price has to be paid for that, and I’d rather that came about after the last ball is kicked.
It would be a fitting conclusion if we drag ourselves over the finishing line, and I still wouldn’t rule that out.
We shall see. At least it will all be over this time next week, and we have three months without the football ruining your weekend. Somehow, I think we’ll need it…
Oh, and Franchise are relegated. Ha.