Midweek we brought you the views of The Mudhutter ahead of Villa’s trip to Wigan.
Today it’s the turn of Cockney Latic to provide an opposition view on what we might expect from today’s game at the DW Stadium.
You will face Villa without Warren Joyce at the helm after his recent sacking. Joyce was previously linked to Steve Bruce’s backroom team & was well regarded in the academy set-up. What happened there?
I think that as good as Warren Joyce is at coaching the U23 squad, it didn’t transfer over to managing a Championship team. The fans weren’t very pleased about it and things only got worse as his tenure went on. The style of play was one of not losing, but forgetting about the important bit (scoring ourselves)
What would you put your struggles down to this season?
You know, that is a bloody difficult question, as if you watch us play we are generally not the worst team in each game, but we concede silly goals and don’t score anywhere near enough… even though we create quite a of of chances.
How confident are you of avoiding the drop to League 1? What would this mean for Wigan?
To be honest it is hard to be confident of it, I reckon we need 15 or 16 points out of our last 9 games, 4 of which are against teams in the top 5. To have a chance we need to beat Villa (sorry) Rotherham and Barnsley at home and try get something from Newcastle and Ipswich. As you may see, that is a tall order seeing as we haven’t shown anything like that sort of form for ages.
Who is your key man this weekend?
You know, I think Obertan will come in to his own this weekend, if he does and we get Gilgby and Bogle into the game early on, we could give it a good go. We just need to chances now, attack and go out fighting.
Are there are rising young talents emerging at Wigan we should keep our eye on?
There are, but you won’t be seeing any of them this weekend (or the rest of this season for that matter). Another issue we had with Joyce was that he persisted in playing people out of position when injuries came along instead of blooding the youngsters.
Villa have stabilised lately, but our away form remains pretty dismal, what are your predictions for the game and result?
Heart is saying we’ll come out and give a really good crack and win 2 nil. The mind is thinking we will not change style and draw nil apiece.
What are your views/opinions of Villa generally as an outsider looking in?
Villa are one of the better clubs in the league. We were looked after when we came to your gaff, fans were generally good to have banter with and though the results haven’t come this season I think Bruce will stabilise you and get you back up (only to be fired and have a ‘top’ manager come in and not do a patch on what he can do…. it’s the way hierarchy think)
If you could sign any Villa player, who would you take? Equally, is there anyone amongst our squad you’d want to avoid with a bargepole?
Grealish is I think one of the best players I have seen play, with respect I think he could have gone on to much bigger things had he moved on.
If you could swap your historic FA Cup win for a return to the Premier League, would you?
Not a fucking chance, hate the League, the plastic fans, the shit referees and the bullyboy stewards and police.
Thanks to Jason from Cockney Latic for answering the above.
You can also see the pre-match views of The Mudhutter here.