The first two months of the season in Scotland have, frankly, caused me to die a little inside, so I took the calaculated risk of abandoning my beloved Caley in their hour of need against Partick Thistle, instead indulging myself in a dirty weekend with the high-class prostitution that is the English Premier League.
Considering I saw a stunning Wigan-Chelsea game with an underdog victory, a red card, a penalty, and a close up of an Ashley Cole hissy-fit, while "missing out" on Inverness losing three goals in the first half against the so-called Real Jags, would you perhaps agree that I made the right choice?
Of course, I feel guilty about my betrayal, but it won't happen again (not until November's Sunderland-Arsenal game, at the earliest), and, frankly, I'm not convinced that my long-term footballing partner is being supportive and loving enough to me to deserve my fidelity at the moment.
Caley seem to be stuck in a bizarre loop of good game-bad game-good game-bad game. Having given Motherwell a right scare in the league cup in midweek, everyone was prepared for the worst this weekend, and they were proven correct. I'm sure "consistent inconsistency" is an oxymoron, but it sums up things nicely. The only relief is that it remains such a close league that we are only five points off top spot, But we need to find some semblance of form asap or any hopes of a promotion challenge go out the window, particularly if Dundee find that semblance before we do.
So, instead of another turgid, dull Saturday afternoon in (I'm going to milk this analogy to death, dammit), I went to Wigan-Chelsea, and struck it lucky. Not as lucky as the proper Wigan fans, who saw their side beat one of the Big Four for the first time in 35 Premier League attempts and promptly celebrated like it was Christmas. Good for them, though the young woman behind me who screamed at 150 decibels when Wigan grabbed their third goal, scarring my eardrums in the process, really should be sent a bill for the damage done to windows in a three mile radius.
Chelsea were the football equivalent of Gordon Brown's government; they knew things were going all wrong, they knew that defeat was probably coming, yet they seemed pretty much helpless to turn things around. Even their tight midfield diamond was overrun, thanks to the power of the Austrian Paul Scharner, who won every high ball at the half-way line because Chelsea's centre-backs wouldn't risk advancing that far to challenge him, and due to their combination of defensive midfielders, Mohamed Diame and Hendry Thomas, who stopped Essien and Lampard from playing.
Hendry who? Exactly. Remember Wilson Palacios, the Honduran midfielder plucked from nowhere who ran Wigan's midfield for 18 months before being sold to Spurs for a cool 12 million? Well, they've replaced him with...another Honduran midfielder plucked from nowhere who now runs Wigan's midfield. He definitely has all the attributes needed; his tackling is timed as well as a Blackadder insult, his positioning is immaculate, and he has such an engine that you half expect him to be dressed in a pink rabbit suit and banging a drum whilst he makes the aforementioned tackles.
This surely is conclusive proof that Wigan have created a secret laboratory deep in the Central American jungle, where they are conducting experiments on Hondurans and turning them into top defensive midfielders. Obviously, a flaw in these tests early on resulted instead in the creation of Maynor Figueroa, who instead plays at left-back, but if Wigan are going to get 12 million for each of these guys, then it seems like good business. In fact, why not expand the operation and create an entire team?
So if Wigan Athletic win the league in a decade's time with a side made up entirely of unknown Honduran supermen, you heard it here first. And if I mysteriously disappear between now and then, you know it's a conspiracy!
L.
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