The Latics succumbed 2-0 to a high-flying Portsmouth at Boundary Park on Saturday in blizzard conditions. The weather was that bad that the referee had to call a halt to the game for eight minutes in the 63rd minute with the home fans baying for an abandonment, but it didn’t come.
Manager Richie Wellens said after the game, “The conditions were really difficult for both sets of players. It made a big difference that they won the toss and turned us around at the start so that we were playing into a bad wind. We were trying to play neat passing football when Portsmouth were clearing it long and trying to force mistakes from us. We had highlighted Pitman before the game because he’s one of the league’s top scorers, but then we left him free as a bird to score the first goal. I would have been happy with 1-0 at half-time because then we could have played to the conditions ourselves, but the second goal was a killer and a really poor one to concede.”
“I do like us to play out from the back, but our keeper should have just cleared it up the pitch. Not enough of our creative players turned up today and we didn’t get enough decent balls into their box. In the second half, with the snow storm, the conditions were pretty farcical. I can’t be too hard on the players, but we couldn’t build any momentum and we lacked the quality to sustain many attacks.”