Andy Munro watches Blues continue to improve.
As I walked up to the ground, nowadays more in expectation than hope, this was reinforced by the guy walking behind me who pointed out how refreshing it was to go to a home match with the strong possibility of a win.
The only downside to the increasing success and growing excitement around the club is that I never bother to listen intently anymore to the team announcements because I know that Blues will field an unchanged side. I did, however, notice that, for Wigan, Agent Ridgewell had returned on another mission.The tag that he has never lost and his rather hasty, unapologetic, previous departure from Blues made sure that he received a warm welcome in only one sense of the word.
Blues started off like the proverbial train when Cotterill burst down the wing to swing over a delicious cross hungrily gobbled up by Clayton Donaldson with a firm header thereby opening the scoring. The same player had the chance to make it two and jinking runs from Demarai and co put us well into the driving seat and, in fact, Donaldson could easily have had a hat-trick in the first quarter of an hour.
We eventually made it two following some shimmying from the Scotch mist himself… it’s just a shame that the original batch of Blues shirts with the legend Shinniesta on them are probably being proudly worn in Gambia and Ghana by now.
Despite their lowly position, Wigan are no mugs. They still have a surfeit of playing talent and hit back strongly. With Blues failing to capitalise at the attacking end it was no surprise when they reduced the arrears with a goal of sublime proportions. Having said that, Robbo gave the ball away and then the Blues defence uncharacteristically were slow in closing down the eventual Wigan scorer.
After the restart, it was a case of nip and tuck but, luckily, it was Blues who scored the decisive fourth goal of the match. Again Cotterill was the provider following a bout of jinking on the wing and then a great cross turned bravely goalwards by youngster Gray, leaving Donaldson the simple task of poaching a well deserved hat trick.
Sensible subs followed in the closing minutes as the energetic Novak came on for the tiring Shinnie and Wes Thomas came on for Demarai Gray who had run himself into the ground. However, by then the game was almost dead and, in fairness, a resolute Blues defence never really looked like conceding.
Despite the effect of the Rowett revolution I still think the play-offs are a step too far but it’s nice to keep dreaming.