Wigan run out of wiggle room

After the euphoria of Saturday when the romance came bursting back to the FA Cup tonight Wigan became the first ever team to win the FA Cup and get relegated in the same season. The Latics finally ran out of legs tonight and Arsenal cruelly rolled them over.

Wigan now face losing many of their best young players plus their talismanic manager. Next season they will have to face another 8 league games as well as however many Europa Cup games, at least 5 before December, plus cup games of course. That will be a heck of a schedule. I can’t see them featuring heavily amongst the favourites.

Martinez at least had the grace to refuse to talk about his future tonight unlike Gus Poyet, who whilst all around him Brighton fans were hurting, Poyet declared that he needed to consider his future.

Brighton will bounce back, whereas Palace may well not have done and now us Addicks have the ignominy of watching them taking their place at Wembley on the coat tails of Millwall. Even Parky would’ve been at the fabled stadium twice this season. Note to CP: Please take the cups a little more seriously next season please.

Whilst Palace going up wouldn’t be a disaster as I am sure they will attempt to do it the ‘Blackpool way’ as opposed to the ‘Southampton way’ the concern is that floaters and young families get their head turned by Premiership football on their doorstep and more importantly financially Palace’s clout will suddenly become so much greater than ours.

Brentford like Watford managed to turn a desperate final day into a positive and I hope the Bees can beat Yeovil in the League One Play-Off Final, although having the Glovers in the Championship to replace similar sized Peterborough will be no bad thing. Yeovil have never played higher than the 3rd tier and Brentford only for one season in the last 60 years.

I just wanted to add my congratulations to Nathan Jones U21 Development side that became Division 2 champions after beating Cardiff 3-1 in extra time at the Cardiff City Stadium on Saturday. It was a great achievement and another trophy will proudly be on display at The Valley.

If you’re interested a certain Jonathan Obika scored twice as Spurs beat Everton in the Division 1 U21 Development semi-final and Spurs will play Man United in that final, who didn’t impress me at all when I saw them play West Ham a couple of months back.