Blues boss Alex McLeish praises opponents Wigan's fantastic character

Dec 4 2009 by Colin Tattum, Birmingham Mail

ALEX McLeish says he doesn’t expect Wigan Athletic to have any lasting scars from their 9-1 pasting at Spurs.

The Latics responded to their White Hart Lane horror by determinedly beating Sunderland at home last Saturday.

“They are up round about the same points as us, so we know they are similar to us,” said McLeish.

“They had a huge beating at Spurs but I’m sure everybody goes to these grounds and deep down thinks ‘I hope we don’t get a doing here’.

“It can happen. Arsenal, Spurs, Man United, Chelsea, on a given day.

“You like to always believe you will do yourselves justice but these results do happen and Wigan responded to it and they are dangerous.

“To bounce back the way they did they showed fantastic character. We bounce back a lot as a team, the resilience we’ve shown in games this season when we’ve been down at Man United, Spurs, Arsenal, Liverpool, we’ve come back.

“So we’re kind of similar. Roberto Martinez is obviously playing a kind of different style with one through and the one supporting.

‘‘He proved last year at Swansea that that system can work, given the right personnel.

“So he is persevering with that and he’s in a half-decent position in the league, similar to us.

‘‘We are playing with confidence, and they will have taken a good deal of confidence from that Sunderland result after what happened at Spurs.”