Hope, surprise and a glimmer: Wigan at Aston Villa

We have to beat Wigan tomorrow. I don't mean it is a must win, I just mean we really have to beat Wigan tomorrow much like we did earlier this year.

Three points tomorrow is hugely important but not just for the points. It is massively important because Wigan are in the bottom three and they deserve to be beaten by us for many reasons, but some will disagree with that statement.

Enjoy every second

But with the season that we will all want to forget very quickly coming to an end, we should enjoy this one. We should look for positives and hope for something special.

We should hope to see a glimmer of something special from one of the younger players. We should hope for a Darren Bent goal or three and we should hope that we see something to give us hope.

The real world

I could write about tactics and formations and who should play and how we should approach this game, but that is all too much for the stand in manager and too much for the players. The only thing they should focus on right now is the basics.

The basics are; work hard, track back and chase every ball and let Darren Bent do whatever it is he does. When we get the ball, we need to play to our strengths, which is quite simply get it wide, to either Stewart Downing or Ashley Young and when they have it, they need to be supported.

It really is about the basics tomorrow and if there is a chance to have a shot, take it. We don't need to win pretty, we just need to win.

Updates, prediction and banter

So, that is my fairly half-arsed attempt at a pre-match post. If you want statistics of the last game, pop on over to the chalkboards page on the Guardian website. I don't think they matter tomorrow - all that matters is three points. If we don't get those three points, I dread to think what it will be like here.

But we will be back from about midday tomorrow and I'm not entirely sure why, but because it is my thing to predict wins, I'm going to predict three points tomorrow and 3 from the next two matches.

Match odds