Well, arguably the most notable FA Cup final the 21st century. Manchester City had begun their meteoric rise to the outfit were currently accustomed seeing picking up silverware on multiple occasions every single season, while Wigan were exiting the Premier League after a poor season. And I won't spoil the punchline, but I bet you can guess what happened in this match... As ever, thanks to anyone who has constructive comments to add and for any time spent taking a look, I'll address all such issues as soon as I possibly can. Cheers. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 09:12, 4 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Not a full review, but I looked through the article (and enjoyed it), and have one comment to pass along. The paragraph in the "Post-match" section starting "Sporting Life described the win as..." is a bit repetitive in structure. It's this sort of thing that prompted me to write WP:RECEPTION, and I wonder if the same approach could be taken here. Could we restructure this to put similar comments together, in order to vary the rhythm and sentence structure? E.g. something like this for the first sentence (and I've elided the names of the writers since I think unless the writers themselves are important journalists it's the source that the reader cares about):
Sporting Life described the win as the "biggest FA Cup final shock" since Wimbledon's defeat of Liverpool in the 1988 final. Other commentators went further, with Fox Sports, BBC Sport and FourFourTwo all saying it was one of the biggest shocks in competition's history, and bookmaker William Hill agreeing.
That's a bit abbreviated, perhaps, and I'm fine with adding back in whatever you think is important; the main thing is that multiple major commentators said it was a huge upset and that's what we should tell the reader. Is FourFourTwo important enough to even name? (I've been gone from the UK for decades so I really don't know.) If you've read enough newspaper articles to support this could we expand the introductory comment to "most commentators" described it as one of the biggest shocks..."? That would be ideal. I had a look on newspapers.com; I don't have the Publishers' Extra subscription so I can't access the recent papers but it was pretty clear from the snippets that it was described in those terms in multiple US papers too. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:42, 5 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
HiMike, I've taken a stab at reducing the X said Y, Z remarked A, etc etc. Let me know if it's more in keeping with your thinking. Of course, happy to take onboard further suggestions (or even happier for you to tweak it yourself!) Thanks again for the comment. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 09:03, 5 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The only issue I can think of is that it might be neater to have a link to 2012–13 FA Cup in the background section, rather than not mentioning the year's competition until Route to the final
"in the third round where they were drawn" -> "in the third round, in which they were drawn"
"Costel Pantilimon then denied Fernando Forestieri a goal-scoring opportunity for Watford" - slightly confusing wording. "Denied him an opportunity" sounds like might have had an opportunity but never got to have it. Whereas presumably in fact he did have an opportunity, just that the goal being denied by Pantilimon.
"Tevez's pass to him allowed him to take the ball past Leeds United goalkeeper" - the "to him" is a bit redundant; also slightly confusing - can a pass really allow you to take the ball past the keeper? Seems more likely that it's up to your own skill whether you can do that or not, as long as the pass actually reaches you
"after eleven minutes after David Silva's volley" - repetition of "after"
"In the semi-final, City faced defending" - probably should be "Manchester City" for consistency
"faced defending FA Cup champions Chelsea at Wembley, a neutral venue, for the fourth time in the FA Cup" - ambiguous: is it the fourth time they played Chelsea at Wembley, or the fourth time in the Cup overall?
"in the third round where they faced" - still prefer "in which" probably
"dominated the second half" - dominated it how? Sounds like more of an opinion than an objective fact. Might want to say they had more possession or more shots on goal or whatever.
"strike from outside the Wigan Athletic penalty area" - link
"in the area" - should probably be "penalty area"; although also need to consider whether this is too soon after the previous penalty area
"ensured the tie would need to be settled in a replay" - this use of tie might confuse people who don't know about it, especially as it can also mean a draw
"second appearance in the FA Cup Fifth round" - round numbers aren't usually capitalised in this article
"founding of the club in 1932" - up to you, but you could consider dropping the year since it was already mentioned earlier
"4–1 win for Wigan Athletic. Wigan Athletic's quarter-final opponents" - repetition of "Wigan Athletic"
"who they faced at Goodison Park" - should be "whom"
"McManaman then doubled the lead after a mistake from Phil Neville allowed him to take the ball past Everton's goalkeeper Ján Mucha before shooting" - one of those after ... before constructs, which end up sounding a bit confusing. I might reword to something like "McManaman then doubled the lead when a mistake by Phil Neville allowed him to take the ball past Everton's goalkeeper Ján Mucha and shoot"
"The win ensured Wigan would play in the first" - after a string of Wigan Atheletics, we now have a Wigan. Either make them all the same, or consider dropping the Athletic in all but the first mention.
"saw them faced Championship side Millwall" - "face"
"the ball finding Touré: his shot was pushed away by Joel" - not sure a colon is the correct punctuation here. Suggest either a semicolon, or perhaps a new sentence.
"8 yards (7.3 m)" - too much precision
", his shot went wide of the Manchester City post" - again, a new sentence or semicolon instead of a comma would seem preferable
"Manchester City's Matija Nastasić's long-range strike" - the double possessive here sounds slightly awkward. Maybe reword.
"wayward" - a bit journalese
"He passed to McManaman who was fouled by Zabaleta around 30 yards (27 m) from the Manchester City goal who was sent off after receiving a second booking" - the double "who" in this sentence makes it a bit confusing. Also I'd suggest the nugget about it being the third sending off should be here rather than in post-match.
Wigan Athletic's leading scorer during the regular season --> this kind of assumes that the reader knows that the final is played after the season ends. Maybe that should be made explicit somewhere
progressed to a fourth round match at the Britannia Stadium where they played Stoke City --> this makes it look like it is just coincidence that Stoke City play their home games at that venue
four minutes in the first half to secure victory --> there are quite a few "secure"s which is ok, but these 2 are a bit too close together for my liking
Wigan Athletic won the match 2–0 and progressed to the first FA Cup final in the club's history --> I can see the lure of this record, but at the same time it is inevitable giving the uniqueness of reaching the semis
Wigan Athletic adopted a 3–4–3 formation while Manchester City played as a 4–2–3–1. --> this is a bit in an odd place. It would fit better at the end of the previous paragraph
On 20 May, Wigan had an open-top bus tour of the town to celebrate the FA Cup victory --> a bit out of place. Should be closer to all the Wigan related stuff
Lead: In the United Kingdom, the match was televised by ITV and ESPN. --> I don't think this is important enough to make it in the lead, and definitely not the first paragraph.
Lead: As such, Wigan Athletic --> I don't see why we need the As such. The previous sentence has nothing to do with Wigan going to the Europa league, does it? Or may be As such is not trying to connec those 2 sentences? In any case, should Wigan's journey into Europe not be mentioned first, as winners?
Lead: becoming the first team to win the Cup and succumb to relegation in the same season --> that's not exactly what the body says. The body says from the highest tier
9.4 million in the UK according to The Times [2]. I can't see anything in a reliable source about global audience numbers, there is only the Express saying it's half a billion, a record [3]. I'll have a better look later. I noticed in The Times they mention an issue about kick off time, which I think needs to go somewhere in the article. It was even debated in parliament! [4]. Edwininlondon (talk) 13:11, 8 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Right, I made this edit only. Prose and comprehensiveness look okay to me though I am interested to see how Edwininlondon feels after review finished as he's asked some questions I'd have asked....but a thumbs up from me pending....Cas Liber (talk·contribs) 13:31, 7 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
This is an underdog story, but until the post-match section we only get a limited sense of this. While adding emphasis while maintaining encyclopedic tone isn't always easy, we have things like City having won the last 7 meetings between the sides without conceding a goal, Wigan were 40 points behind in the league[5].
Not strictly true, we do have "with Wigan Athletic in eighteenth place in the league and Manchester City in second position" in the Background section, but I agree that can be bulked up with the factoids you've mentioned here. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 09:45, 13 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
For the earlier rounds, some more about the degree of squad rotation may be helpful. Wigan were battling relegation, at what point did the cup become a priority? Likewise City harboured title hopes at the time of the early rounds.
Chronology of Post-match a bit bumpy. Wigan playing in Europe the following season is mentioned before events two days after the game. Plus Wigan were in the Europa irrespective of the result of the final.
There are a few Wigans without "Athletic", if it matters? (It was Wigan's first FA Cup final, Wigan had gained, Wigan penalty area was too high, Wigan had an open-top, Wigan had gained a Europa, Wigan's manager Martínez)
BBC... but did concede to play the fixture as the last game of the domestic season - I can't read all of the archived ref, what does this mean? BBC "play the fixture"? Is that them broadcasting it? Was it not live?
HiTRM, for once not a query about how the player nationalities were sourced but where the players' numbers came from -- apologies if I missed the obvious... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 14:01, 22 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
