Sport
Birmingham City Boss Revealed That He Will Never Agree With Wigan Athletic’s “Bad Luck”
Chris Davies disagrees with Shaun Maloney over Wigan Athletic’s ‘bad luckA’
Chris Davies and Shaun Maloney had contrasting views of the circumstances around Birmingham City’s late 2-1 victory over Wigan Athletic.
Blues looked to be in control when Alfie May scored his fourth goal of the season midway through the first half, but the Latics’ interval changes brought them back into the match and they deservedly equalised when Bailey Peacock-Farrell allowed Thelo Aasgaard’s low shot to squirt from his grasp and into the net.
As a result Blues needed a Scott Wright strike a minute into injury time to ensure they weren’t held at home by Wigan in the way they had been by Reading on the opening day of the season.
By the time the former Rangers man delivered the knockout blow Blues had regained control of the game, with Marc Leonard and Lyndon Dykes coming off the bench to play influential roles. However, while Latics’ boss Maloney says it was the loss of Stephen Sessegnon to injury with ten minutes to go – with the visitors having used all their substitutions – that caused the turnaround, Davies says Blues wore them down earlier in the game
A bit of bad luck today, I think, a real mix of emotions,” Maloney said. “I am absolutely devastated with the result, but just massive pride on how we came here and played. I think up until we went down to ten we were really good and then sometimes a bit of bad luck makes your day a lot harder.
“No game’s a free hit, we have people paying to come and watch us. I loved preparing for the game I actually just see it as an amazing challenge.
“I thought I thought our players were brilliant playing under real pressure. I loved the atmosphere. There was definitely a 10 or 15 minute spell after they scored where you could you could really feel the atmosphere, and we had to suffer. Then I thought the second half we were growing until Sessegnon’s injury.”
Davies preferred to credit his players rather than dismiss the situation as mere luck. “I am very happy, obviously, with the with the result. I think in the performance in the main was good. As I’ve said continuously, we’re never going to have easy games. They’re all going to be hard and I felt today would be a real challenge.
“Wigan are quite a proactive team, try to press you and they continue to try to play as well, so we had to be really ready for that. But I thought we were the best team in the first half. We scored a good goal, had some nice moves and then second half, I thought they they had a little period for 10-15 minutes when they were a little bit brighter and caused us a few more problems.
But then we kind of regained control again and then eventually, when they went down to ten men, we could really push on from there. I think them going down to ten men was a consequence of us and how hard we work because they’ve made all their subs and then they get another injury, and that’s something that I’m trying to reinforce to the players is our energy, how hard we work and our running is going to make teams find it hard to stay with us. You see the amount of them getting cramped and everything else like that.”
