Cook '˜delight' at Wigan Athletic show of character

Paul Cook could not hide his '˜delight' at coming through a hectic week unbeaten and adding five points to Wigan Athletic's healthy tally.
Paul Cook on the touchline at HorwichPaul Cook on the touchline at Horwich
Paul Cook on the touchline at Horwich

Latics emerged from the international break energised and refreshed, and ended a run of four defeats on the spin with a win over Blackburn and two draws against Reading and Bolton that could easily have returned maximum points.

“That takes us to 25 points after 20 games, and we just keep going with what we’re doing,” enthused the Latics boss.

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“Five points from the three games played...we’re delighted with that given the division we’re in.

“Reading, Blackburn, Bolton...they’re good sides with good players.

“Of course a win over Bolton would have made a good week even better.

“But we never, we picked up a point, and we move on.”

For Cook, it was an emphatic response to any semblance of negativity that had been generated by the recent four-game losing streak.

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“I’ve said before but the world in which managers are operating these days is not correct,” he barked.

“The pressure is making managers do things that maybe they don’t want to be doing.

“For me as a manager I want my beliefs to come through my team.

“I’ve always said that if we can cut out the individual errors then we will pick up points.

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“In the last three games we’ve seen very few individual errors and we haven’t lost.

“I was always confident that once we could eradicate the mistakes we could climb the league.”

Cook’s decision to bring in Will Grigg for his first start in eight weeks was vindicated by the striker’s emphatic equaliser from the penalty spot.

And the gaffer acknowledged it had been a tough call to stand down James Vaughan after a man-of-the-match performance in midweek.

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“Vaughany was outstanding on Wednesday might against Blackburn,” Cook added.

“But Will’s come in today and his movement was as good as ever.

“We’ve allowed him to recover in his own time, and a fit Will Grigg is a massive asset for this football club.”