COOK’S RECIPE
Wigan boss Paul Cook looks ahead to taking on Pep’s Man City
PAUL Cook was watching from a posh box at Anfield the last – and only – time Manchester City tasted defeat this season.
“Don’t tell my mates,” jokes the scouser, a lifelong Liverpool fan who is more regularly found on the Kop. “They’ll slaughter me for being up there!”
Tomorrow night, the Wigan boss will have an even more exclusive vantage point, shoulder to shoulder with Pep Guardiola as the runaway Premier League leaders pay a visit to the DW.
Ostensibly, the prize is a place in the FA Cup quarter-finals. In reality, scalping arguably the finest side in world football would eclipse all but the most legendary upsets.
City are 16 points clear at the summit, just six wins from an inevitable title. Records for goals and points look certain to be smashed.
In 27 league games, they have scored four or more goals on nine separate occasions. Sergio Aguero, not even a guaranteed starter, has netted 15 times in his last eight matches.
Wigan, meanwhile, are a League One side with a playing budget smaller than Pep’s annual salary. No wonder Cook chuckles when he’s asked how to stop them.
“Better coaches than me have come up with formulas and systems to stop City doing what they do,” admits the former Accrington boss, whose side have already beaten Bournemouth and West Ham en route to the last 16.
“But, in my opinion, it doesn’t matter how you break the game down. They will make it very uncomfortable.
“You can drop deep, you can press high, all the things modern coaches talk about. But, whatever you try to do to them, Man City will find a way of making you dance to their tune.
“It comes from dominating possession. It comes from every single player being comfortable on the ball, including the keeper. But they don’t just have the best players. They have a desire to win football matches.
“Honestly, you can’t heap enough superlatives on them. All you can do is acknowledge what they are, a well-oiled machine who don’t have any weaknesses at all.
“I went to watch them play West Brom recently and I forgot they had a goalkeeper until the 44th minute. That’s against a team that had just won 3-2 at Anfield.
“At Anfield, Liverpool scored three goals in nine minutes. And, believe it or not, City’s heads had gone during that period. They really had.
“But, in the couple of minutes it took to restore their sanity, they went from 4-1 down to 4-3 down and very nearly equalised. That’s how dangerous they are.
Curious
“When you look at the Premier League, Tottenham are a fantastic team. Liverpool score goals for fun. Man United have world-class players. Yet City are 16 points ahead after 27 games.
“That says everything. Anyone who thinks they aren’t the best team in the country is foolish.”
It is curious that, in a season of unparalleled domestic dominance, two of City’s stiffest tests have come at the hands of EFL opposition.
Early in the season, Wolves took a side featuring Aguero and Raheem Sterling to penalties in the EFL Cup, while Bristol City twice ran Guardiola’s men close before succumbing to a 5-3 aggregate defeat in the semifinals of the same competition.
Unlike the majority of Premier League opponents, both went toeto-toe with City – and Cook has promised he will follow suit. “Our percentage chance of a result is very small,” he admits. “But will we give it a go? Of course. We’re genuinely not going to sit off them. “Why would we want to wait for them to open us up? “If you give them lots of space and a big pitch to play on, you’re dead. Liverpool disrupted them, and that’s the blueprint. We have to get after them and play with the appetite and belief that we can upset them. “They will control the game. They will dictate. For us, it’s how many minutes can we make it uncomfortable for them. And, when we have those moments, can we score? “If we can, it could be a famous night. If we can’t, then, as other teams have discovered, it could be a very hard, very long night.” Like City, Wigan are fighting on multiple fronts. Top of League One for the majority of the last three months, the Latics were on a 17-game unbeaten run before back-to-back defeats in the last seven days slammed the brakes on, allowing Shrewsbury to take over at the summit in midweek.
Cook vehemently denies the looming prospect of facing City’s slickers played any part in the sudden dip.
Marathon
“All this talk about distractions. I’m not having it,” says the 50-year-old. “Not in any shape or form.
“To me, you can equate football to a marathon. During that race you’ll have bad moments. You’ll make a mistake with your pace or get tired. But, if you broadly stick to the strategy, you’ll be fine.
“We’ve been top of the league for so long. Now we’ve been knocked off, people are looking for reasons. But the reality is that we went 17 games unbeaten and, eventually, all runs come to an end. Unfortunately, ours came to an end on the eve of the Man City game, but there’s nothing in it, nothing at all.” And, like Guardiola, Cook knows how it feels to be a manager in demand. A League Two title-winner with Portsmouth last season, the former midfielder was spooked by the prospect of new ownership and demanded a contract that reflected his achievements. When Pompey procrastinated, Wigan pounced – and, to the fury of supporters, Cook made the move north just days after lifting the trophy. Does Wigan’s success justify that controversial move? “It’s not about justification,” he insists. “I loved Fratton Park. If someone had said to me a week before we left Portsmouth that we’d be gone, I wouldn’t have believed them. “But things happen. With contracts, with ownership. They
should stay in one place and I
don’t believe in peopple saying
things tit-for-tat.
“We were very happy at
Portsmouth and unfoortunately
that changed quite quickly. It was
nothing to do with Wiggan or their
interest in me.
It’s to do with whaat went on
behind the scenes. I’ve got my
opinion on that and Portsmouth
have regularly aired ttheirs. For
me, it’s best to keep quuiet.
he says.
bad day.”
Challenge
“It’s a fantastic club. The suphere
porters down there are
absolutely unbelievablle and they
deserve success.
“In my opinion, they y will build
a strong club and theey will get
back up there.
“For us, coming to Wigan was
just a good challenge. Where the
club lies in comparison to
Portsmouth is irrelevaant.”
Where they lie in comparison
to City is not.
But, just as Wigan have falk,
tered in the last week so Cook
says City can stutter.
“They play the besst football,
they conduct themselves in the
right manner,” he says
“They never get into any ugly
stuff. Honestly, you cou
book about what they’rre good at,”
“But even the best teams have a