I reckon:
Al Habsi didn't keep Wigan in the game - our chances weren't that clear cut, mainly shots from distance and although Ali was diving about for the cameras I think any goalie would have been gutted if they'd let any of our efforts in. What I saw was a procession of regulation saves, mainly straight at him apart from Ream's 2nd effort. So although Dougie's 451 game plan worked brilliantly for 80 minutes there was no REAL cutting edge to our attack. Also think selling Ali was good business at £4m seeing as he was back up for Jussi, not playing, and Boggers was being developed. Ali and Boggers both have a record of howlers so there's not much between them on that score but Boggers is younger and is good enough for the most part.
Giving Hall another chance seemed rash after his last outing, but his performance showed why he's in contention. Brave move from Dougie and I reckon Hall will stay - and hopefully push on from here. Always tricky when you give kids a chance as it showed with Josh Vela last year, but we just have to live with it or they'll never come through. Hopefully Dougie will stop worrying about relegation and try out some more before the summer. Noted that Sanmi Odelusi got himself sent off at the weekend after diving into a tackle so he's still got a bit to learn.
Giving Trotter another chance also looked rash, but it had to be done and the only positive is that we know he's not up to the pace so unless there's an incredible turn around, Dougie can strike him off the summer shopping list.
By the time Dougie made the subs we were already under the cosh and it's clear something had to be done. I get why he put Baptiste on in midfield to break play up - and to give him a chance at redemption after his previous nightmare - but he gave it away and then charged back in time to dive in rashly for the pen. Seriously questioning his future with us and that will depend on how much (if any) flexibility Dougie has in the summer transfer market. For me, it just underlines how much we've missed Tierney at LB this season as it's never a good thing to play defenders out of position. It looks like Baptiste isn't a contender for CB, and when Hutton goes back I'm hoping White has done enough to step up in which case it's difficult to see a case for keeping Baptiste, although his forward runs and goals in the early season may weigh in his favour.
The key thing about the game for me though was that Dougie was brave enough to go with 451 at home despite popular opinion and demonstrated that with pace and skill on the wings (Lee was also much improved) and a solid back 6 it can work really well - but if he's going to take that system forward we need quality full backs on both sides and the overall fitness/stamina levels need to go up another notch so that they can last the full 90 minutes at the required pace - which is where it went wrong yesterday IMO.
Still, despite being forced to play Trotter from the start, not being clinical/incisive enough in front of goal when we were on top and tiring before the game was out a 1-1 draw was a better result than it could have been against a strong side like Wigan. How some people can predict we'll get murdered and then complain when we get a draw after what was largely a good performance doesn't make sense to me.
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