Post match thought: City 5 - 0 Wigan (Capital One Cup)

REVENGE IS OURS (not really)!!! After a first half full of frustration and lag, I found a stream that would work moderately well to watch the game. It may have been in French, but from what I could understand, names in French are the same as in English.

For a first round Capital One Cup match there were plenty of “storylines” against Wigan. After our F.A. Cup final disaster against them last season, City looked to get some “revenge;” at least as much as an early League Cup game can provide. The second story line was the return to play of Micah Richards and Gael Clichy. Boy, did Richards look extremely willing and strong! During the first half, from what twitter told me, Richards made bull-like runs down the right wing and almost scored a few times. He had one shot heading just wide of the goal.

During the second half Richards was rewarded for his efforts, as he ran onto a chipped pass from Dzeko, and sent a laser cross that connected with Jovetic. He hit it off the keeper, got it back and found the net. The goal by the Montenegrin striker was another great sign for City, as he got himself onto the scorer’s sheet in front of the home fans. I’m sure this was a huge relief for him. With about seven minutes left to play Jovetic grabbed his second goal for the match off of a brilliant individual effort from Milner to send a cross towards the striker. Hopefully going forward, a game like this will give Jovetic confidence, because we need more goals from him this season.

There were a couple of other first team players making notable contributions beside Richards and Jovetic:

Yaya scored the final goal from essentially the same exact place as his other two free kick goals this season. He is on a tear early on this season and City needs him to continue this form to remain consistent.

Navas got his first City goal in the waning minutes of the match after a beautiful pass from Negredo.

Milner enjoyed the space given on both wings, and was a thorn in Wigan’s side throughout the entire match. When he was partnered with Richards during the match they sped by the Wigan defense numerous times and were unlucky not have produced multiple goals.

All in all, it was a pretty dominating performance, most of the goals for City came in the second half. This was a great sign, as it could have been easy to think ahead to our game against Villa on Saturday, at Villa Park. But, the players kept their eyes on the match at hand and made quick work of a weaker Wigan side. We kept the width that has given us so much success this season and had plenty of freedom on both right and left wings. The reward was five goals. The other young play, Marcos Lopes, played very well and had a hand in some of the goals scored by City today. The future looks bright.

Although he didn’t play a huge part in the game due to lack of pressure, Lescott was vocal throughout, directing the young center back Boyata into position. Whether or not this had any effect on Boyata remains to be seen, but it was a positive I took from a performance where little went wrong.

Finally, if you didn’t already love Sergio Aguero enough, during today’s game our first class striker was live tweeting on the action as much as he could. Thanks to him, I knew that Navas was going to be making his way into the game before he subbed in. It shows that he truly loves it at the club. Good sign.

Funny note: Wigan coach, Owen Coyle was dressed as if he was about to sub on for his side at some point during the match. The fourth official, some how, did not confuse him as a sub at any point during the game, so good for him!