Tottenham Hotspur vs. Wigan: Instant reaction

Well, this is a bit of a rough match. Tottenham Hotspur were very poor at home against Wigan on Saturday, and injuries certainly didn't help their cause. There weren't a ton of positives to take away from the game as the Latics won 1-0 at White Hart Lane.

Spurs were on top of a relatively uneventful game until the 22nd minute, when Sandro picked up an injury and had to come off. With Scott Parker and Moussa Dembele still sidelined with injuries, Andre Villas-Boas opted to bring on a player who is nothing close to a like-for-like replacement in Gylfi Sigurdsson.

Tottenham's best two chances on the night both came from Steven Caulker off corners, which tells you everything that you need to know about the game. Gareth Bale had a couple of his fantastic trademark powerful runs, but was mostly poor, and his end product on those runs down the left simply wasn't good enough. Without their three best central midfielders or a dynamic center forward, Tottenham were lacking in ideas going forward.

Wigan's winner came in the 56th minute, off a corner. Brad Friedel attempted to punch away an odd delivery that came very close to dropping under the crossbar, but only punched as far as an unmarked Ben Watson. He finished comfortably as Friedel fell backwards into his own net, and Tottenham never came terribly close to equalizing, only generating a couple of decent half-chances in the closing minutes.

Some observations:

- Frick.

- There is no excuse for Hugo Lloris not starting every single game. None.

- Sandro's injury hurt a lot and we are in deep trouble if he is out for an extended period of time.

- This was an absolutely crap performance.

- Having said that, lots of teams would look like total crap when down their three best midfielders. I expect Tottenham to play poorly without any of Sandro, Dembele or Parker. I'd expect the same from City without Toure, Barry and Rodwell, and from Chelsea without Mikel, Lampard and Ramires.

- Having said THAT, we should beat Wigan anyway because they are Wigan.

- Seriously though, ugh.