Merson: saw Rovers struggle

He hasn't been able to bring anybody in so I feel for Incey there. I just hope that he's there next week and he gets a result.

Paul Merson
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Wigan 3-0 Blackburn
Soccer Saturday analysis

Paul Merson sympathised with Paul Ince after seeing Blackburn comfortably beaten 3-0 by Wigan.

The home side were 2-0 up after just 12 minutes through Emile Heskey and Antonio Valencia before the straightforward victory was sealed 13 minutes from time by Lee Cattermole.

And Merson said the poor defending from the Rover players will have left Ince pulling his hair out after a week on the training pitch.

"They got ripped apart in the first 10 minutes," Merson told Soccer Saturday.

"The first goal was a great bit of play by Valencia, he slaughtered Warnock and it was a good finish by Heskey.

"But for the second goal the ball came out to Valencia half-way inside Blackburn's half and he just kept on going with the ball.

"Someone made a dummy run and the defender went with the runner instead of worrying about the ball. It was embarrassing, shocking defending.

"You feel for Incey. He does all this work on the training pitch and with 12 minutes gone they are 2-0 down. You just can't give anybody a two-goal head-start in this league."

Blame

Merson says the blame cannot lie fully with Ince because he inherited much of this squad and was not allowed to bring many of his own players in.

And he also feels Ince simply isn't getting the rub of the green as Rovers slipped into the bottom two.

Merson continued: "Sometimes you look at it and think 'are they good enough?'

"They really got ripped apart in parts of the game and they really struggled in midfield.

"They're third bottom and they're nearly two wins away from getting out of it - if Newcastle go and win at Portsmouth.

"I feel for Ince. It's not his team and they've lost the player with the most assists last year in David Bentley.

"Roque Santa Cruz isn't the same player as he was; he's been injured and those kind of things have gone against him.

"He hasn't been able to bring anybody in so I feel for Incey there. I just hope that he's there next week and he gets a result.

"This manager's job, a lot of it's down to luck and being 2-0 down after 12 minutes... there's no luck in that at all."

Worthy

However, Merson said Wigan were worthy winners and was impressed by the return to form of on-loan striker Amir Zaki.

The Egyptian has linked with a move away from the JJB Stadium in the transfer window and Merson, who was previously sceptical about him, said he might have won some admirers based on this performance.

"Don't get me wrong, Wigan were very good," he added.

"They stopped Blackburn from playing, they overpowered them and Zaki was a right handful - he was back to what he was like at the start of the season.

"Don't take that away from them, they got beat by a very good Wigan team today.

"I said wouldn't have bought Zaki because of the way he was playing, he never looked like scoring.

"Today he was a handful and if I was a scout sitting there I'd be thinking about taking a gamble on him for the way he played today.

"I think his agent might turn around and say: 'You'd better liven yourself up like Berbatov did last year when Man United wanted him.'"