DARIKWA’S NIGHTMARE
TENDAYI Darikwa and his Wigan Athletic side are struggling in the English Championship.
On Tuesday, they lost their 10th league match, in 20 games, when they went down 0-2 at Coventry City.
They have lost half the number of league matches they have played.
Wigan slipped into 23th place, on the table, with just 20 points out of a possible 60 points.
Only bottom club Huddersfield, with 18 points as of yesterday, have a worse record in the Championship. Darikwa, who is the team captain, was pulled out in the 82nd minute as Wigan chased for an equaliser.
Team manager, Leam Richardson, said;
“You can’t feel sorry for yourself. We knew it was going to be challenging coming out of the summer coming into this league,” he told BBC Sport.
“It was a disappointing result, but first half it was very even. The keepers didn’t have much to do. We possibly shaded it being the away team. “Second half they started very brightly.
“The momentum swung with them and our distances became a little bit too open, but we saw it through until the sucker punch of the deflected goal.
“Coventry have been going really well for a few years now. They’ve been recruiting really well. I think they’ll be right up there come the end of the year.
“They’ve got a really strong squad of players who’ve been together. They look really well coached, really well drilled. The quality of player is there to be seen.”
The Latics boss felt his side edged the opening 45 minutes at the Coventry Building Society Stadium, only to again come up short in front of goal.
Coventry then upped the ante in the second half, although it took an absolute fluke to open the scoring 13 minutes from time.
A long-range strike from Gusatvo Hamer took a massive deflection on its way past Jamie Jones.
And Latics were put out of their misery deep into stoppage-time when the impressive Viktor Gyokeres ran half the length of the field to slot home number two. “It’s another disappointing result for us,” recognised Richardson.
“I thought the first half was very even, neither goalkeeper had much to do, in fact we possibly shaded it as the away team.
“But in those moments, we’ve got to be a little bit better, certainly offensively, and make our moments count.
“Because you know there’s also going to be certain spells for the opposition, and I thought they started the second half very rightly.”