Wigan 2-2 Stoke
Wigan's start to the season has been a bit weird. In their opening day fixture they were blown away 2-0 by Chelsea who took a very early lead and in their second fixture they beat Southampton 2-0 despite being out played. With 2 for and 2 against maybe it was obvious that there was going to be a 2 in the scoreline here...
The visitors to the DW stadium today were Stoke, who, like Wigan had had a unique start to the season with 2 draws in 2 games. Maybe it should have been obvious from Stoke's form that a draw was the likely outcome here...
The matched started quickly and inside just 5 minutes Wigan had earned a penalty as the ball bounced up and hit Robert Huth's hand. Shaun Maloney had little issue in putting away the spot kick to put the home side in the lead. Before the half however the fortunes had been reversed with Stoke also being given a penalty this time after a handball by Maynor Figueroa after some beautiful work in the penalty are by Peter Crouch. Jonathan Walters had no issues in repeating what Maloney had done at the other end as the sides went in equal with a goal a piece.
Wigan got off to a very quick start to open the second half with Franco Di Santo managing to put the Latics back in the lead inside the first 5 minutes of the second half. As in the first half however Stoke refused to be beaten and Peter Crouch managed to head in an equaliser with 15 minutes left as Stoke leveled at 2-2. Although Stoke did come close from a Charlie Adam free kick no one managed to bag a 3rd as Stoke bagged their 3rd successive draw of the campaign whilst Wigan continued their strange fixation with the #2 .
Wigan will likely be happier with the point from this match despite starting both halves very well thanks in part to seeing Ali Al Habsi again show his class as he saved Wigan a point late on. Although Wigan had their chances through out the game they just didn't seem to fall quite right for their attackers and instead it was their Midfield and defense who had to play out of their skin to secure the point.
Stoke weren't mind blowing but they did create the better chances and perhaps feel slightly aggrieved to have secured their 3rd draw of the season. Peter Crouch looked brilliant at times and was pivotal in both Stoke goals whilst the substitution that saw Charlie Adam brought on really changed the impetus for Stoke who had looked relatively average before then. It would appear that Adam is going to be a starter in Stoke's next league game due to his pull in the middle.
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