Wigan’s woeful wins wait: nearly two years since consecutive victories

By Brian Sears

19 February 2011

While Everton and others are relishing the romance and the glory of FA Cup victories, Wigan are possibly not too unhappy they were knocked out the other day, meaning they can focus on their Premier League survival. And goodness how they need to focus, with an unwanted record among the current top-flight clubs of not having a single case of a back-to-back win for almost two years.

The last time Wigan won consecutive Premier League games was nearly two years ago on 14th and 22nd March 2009, away at Sunderland and then at home to Hull. Only three months before that Wigan were threading as many as four consecutive wins together. But now Wigan have gone 73 games in which all their 15 wins have all been gained singly. See how they compare to other teams in this regard in the table below.

Even Premier League newcomers Blackpool put consecutive wins together in December at Stoke and then at Sunderland. And Chelsea, at the end of 2008-09 and at the beginning of 2009-10 put together as many as 11 straight wins in a row before, ironically, losing at Wigan on 26 September 2009.

When it comes to serial winners in the Premier League Chelsea are pipped, in the last two years, by Arsenal and Manchester United. Almost 90 per cent of that pair’s wins have been followed in the period under review immediately by another.

Of those with recent Championship experience, Birmingham put together a sequence of five Prem wins in November and December 2009, and Newcastle put a run of three together as recently as four months ago.

Arsenal and United both won last time out (against Wolves and Manchester City respectively) after set-backs the game before, so they will be looking to be serial winners again, when they respectively face Stoke (who travel to the Emirates in midweek) and . . . Wigan, who travel to Old Trafford next weekend.