Recently I wrote bemoaning the typical canned comments about lessons learned with respect to winning against lower-table opposition. For the past handful of seasons we have witnessed Arsenal sides of varying permutations raise their performance levels when facing sides competing for European places, only to shit the bed when facing the promoted sides and/or relegation fodder.
To wit, I was referring to the loss to QPR and the subsequent win versus Man City. While we followed that win with another against Wolves, somewhat addressing this tendency, we went into the Wigan match at home perhaps feeling that just showing up would secure the points. It only took ten minutes for the visitors to exploit our lethargic start and secure their first ever victory on our ground. Our performance that day was especially galling because there was every indication that Wigan would give us a game, having just beaten United for the first time full stop, after only losing to Chelsea on the back of some offside howlers and taken three points at Anfield before that.
