Henri Camara, scoring one goal and making the other, had one of those days when his radar was switched on as fatigue, of the mental variety more than the physical, finally caught up with Bolton Wanderers, Wigan’s lofty neighbours from ten miles down the road.
Their counter-attacking play was neat and swift and eighth place in the Premiership, Jewell admitted, with tongue in cheek, afterwards, was not the limit of their ambitions. “You should hear the lads in the showers,” the manager said. “They’re saying we can win the league. Seriously, though, we know we have a long, hard winter ahead of us and the more points we can get in the bag now the better. We’d be lying if we said we aren’t pleased with the start we’ve had but it’s only a start and we’ll be keeping our feet on the floor.”
Wigan struggled to cope with Bolton’s prowess at set-pieces. John Filan, the goalkeeper, was penned back on to his own line as Jason Roberts had to clear Hidetoshi Nakata’s corner, but the home team always looked sprightly in possession and in Camara’s pace and trickery had the escape valve that alleviated pressure at the one end and caused it at the other.
Both aspects were manifested in his second goal for the club since signing from Wolverhampton Wanderers for £3 million. Three minutes into the second period, he hurtled more than half the length of the pitch before laying the ball wide to Jimmy Bullard, whose cross was disappointingly directed. Bruno N’Gotty, however, headed the ball straight back to Camara, who showed admirable composure to chip the ball over Jussi Jaaskelainen and in off the crossbar.
After Ryan Taylor cleared off the line from Kevin Davies, Lee McCulloch clipped home his first Premiership goal with an impeccable half-volley midway through the second period. Camara was again instrumental, ending a fine run down the right wing with a low centre towards Bullard and then winning the resulting loose ball to square for McCulloch.
Bolton, conceding two goals for the first time since the season’s opening day, rallied promptly, Radhi Jaidi powering in a header from Stelios Giannakopoulos’s centre, but while El-Hadji Diouf and Jaidi headed wide when well positioned, Wigan could also have scored again, Roberts heading wide of a goalkeeper-free net and Jaaskelainen tipping over Damien Francis’s wonderful volley.
It was stirring stuff, in front of the biggest crowd this fixture has attracted, but Sam Allardyce, the Bolton manager, refused to use his team’s travelling as an excuse. “I don’t think Thursday’s game affected us,” he said. “The only effect of the game in Europe was that Bruno N’Gotty is the last man in the world to make a header like that (for Camara’s goal) so maybe fatigue affected him more than we thought. We’d have accepted a draw today, before kick-off, but I thought the lads were great today. The reason we conceded twice was because we risked pushing forward more than we usually do in away games. I’d sooner be boring and winning.”
