Next one up: Wigan away

Well it’s almost time for our annual trek to Wigan. Let’s just hope this year’s visit proves to be a bit more fruitful than in the past.

Our record in the Premier League at the JJB consists of one 0-0 draw last season and a 1-0 defeat in 2005/06 due to Pascal Chimbonda’s injury time winner.

The only contact with Wigan since has been to sell them our captain, Michael Brown, who joined in the summer on a three year contract for an undisclosed sum.

Getting an away win under our belts early in the season would be good – as Lawrie Sanchez noted yesterday: “The sooner we get that monkey off our backs the better”.

Wigan, however, will provide tough opposition, not least of all because of the resurgent Emile Heskey who comes into the game off the back of two impressive performances for England.

The Latics currently sit 9th in the table having won both their home games – a 1-0 victory over Middlesbrough and a 3-0 walloping of Sunderland – and drawing 1-1 away at West Ham. Their two league defeats, both away, have come at the hands of Everton on the opening day of the season (2-1) and Newcastle (1-0). However, they are already out of the Carling Cup, having gone done 0-1 at home to Hull City.

Heskey has already got one goal for his new employers, while the real find seems to be Antoine Sibierski who has already scored three. One to watch this Saturday. Boca & Co please take note.

Thankfully our boys that were away on international duty appear to have reported back in one piece – don't you always fear at least one will be injured? – so I imagine Lawrie will probably stick with roughly the same team as the one that faced Spurs.

However, perhaps we will see Kuqi, at least on the bench, as we’ve only got him until the end of this year and he’s apparently keen to “resurrect his career”. Whether he has the requisite talents to form a partnership with Healy up front remains to be seen.