Wigan Athletic 2010-2011 Season: The Handsome Truth About Roberto Martinez

by Kirsten Schlewitz on Jun 9, 2011 8:15 AM BST in AVFC Transfer Rumours

Seriously, give me this handsome man. Please.

Roberto Martinez appears to be Aston Villa's top choice for manager. When the news broke about Martinez potentially taking over at Villa Park, a few supporters went...how should I put this...a wee bit crazy. They bandied about statements such as "eight-zero" and "nine-zero". Now, in case you put your head under a pillow and wept for the entirety of last season, I'd like to point out that these scorelines reference losses that the Latics incurred in 2009-2010. Do you want the cold, hard truth about Wigan in 2010-2011? If so, continue after the jump. If you'd like to keep whining and moaning about how Martinez won't be able to handle himself at a big club, by all means, keep your head in the sand.

***Disclaimer: what follows is only a collection of numbers. They are presented as data and of course can be subject to manipulation. They won't tell the entire story, yet somehow, well, they're mighty revealing***

So in 2009-2010, Wigan made a name for itself by losing, in very dramatic fashion, to both Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur (if you're willing to flash back, you might remember the Villa lost 7-1 to Chelsea that same season). This season, Wigan started off with a 4-0 loss to Blackpool, of all teams, followed by a 6-0 loss to Chelsea once again. It seemed as though the Latics would be continuing on in the same fashion as last season, destined to go down.

Those determined to moan about Wigan, and by extension Martinez, seem to have forgotten that Villa's second Premier League match was the 6-0 loss to Newcastle. But there are a few more numbers relevant to Martinez's second season in charge at Wigan: Wigan dropped 12 points from winning positions this season -- and earned 21 from losing positions. On six occasions, the team was losing, only to come back and draw. That's twelve points right there.

Do you want the Villa numbers? Probably not, but here they are anyway. Aston Villa dropped 26 points from winning positions this Premier League season. TWENTY SIX. They only managed to come back from a a losing position to find a draw twice, and earned just 14 points from situations where they'd been losing. Part of the reason this number is so high? Villa allowed sixteen goals in the last 5+ minutes of each half.

Yeah...let's keep right on slagging Roberto Martinez, shall we?

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Unfortunately, I'm fairly sure

that most of the anti-Martinez crowd were gravely and stubbornly anti-Houllier, happy to sprout off blanket statements about the club’s wonderful tradition and how lovely things were under MON and how Houllier was inferior because of his French blood and how change should take place in one season.

…yeah, I really should stop going onto various Villa boards and blogs.

i tell the truth; i lie a lot

by jonthefon on Jun 9, 2011 11:22 AM BST reply actions

Reserving judgement...

We can’t rip Martinez as a hire at a big club, because we don’t know what he’d do at a big club. By all accounts, from what I heard last year when he was an ESPN host…he is a sharp, astute, observer of the game. He’s held easily the worst job in the Premiership for the last 2 years, and survived both times.

While that’s not the sole reason to make a hire, he’s done a fairly good job of identifying bargain talent, as well as making chicken salad out of chicken shit. When Charles N’Zogbia’s your top scorer…

Anyway – he could suck, he could be great. We can’t really know. I can say, though, I know less about his abilities to win at a big club than I do Hughes or Benitez…neither of whom I’d be ecstatic about. And McClaren…no way.

by The Gentleman Masher on Jun 9, 2011 5:25 PM BST reply actions