‘I heard they wanted 100 points’

According to Wigan Athletic manager Shaun Maloney, their performance in their recent match against Portsmouth was the best of the season, leading to a 2-1 victory that ended Portsmouth’s unbeaten streak.

Maloney praised Wigan’s performance in the first half, stating that they were “absolutely brilliant” and could have been up by more than one goal. However, he acknowledged that they had to hang on in the last 20 minutes of the game.

Despite Portsmouth’s desire to reach 100 points and their 17-game unbeaten streak, Wigan managed to secure the win, with goalkeeper Sam Tickle making several saves to preserve the lead.

Maloney also paid tribute to Portsmouth, acknowledging that they are a good side. The match was a game of two halves, with Wigan dominating the first half and Portsmouth finishing strongly in the second half.

‘But we also wanted to win the game, we had a lot of fans travelling a very long way, and we wanted to send them home with three points.

‘I say it every week how much they mean to the club, the players and to me, they really mean a lot, and I’m really glad we could give them the result they wanted.

‘We had a lot of chances apart from the goals, we caused them a lot of trouble in those wide areas. Being over critical we should put more of those chances away, we were that good.

‘And the second half was the complete opposite, we relied on our goalkeeper again to make some amazing saves, we had to put heads in where it hurt.’

Maloney had words of praise for Pompey, who he felt were worthy title winners and had a player who was a Wigan man as recently as January in Callum Lang.

He added: ‘We’ve shown what we can do against the very best team in this division, we know where we need to improve.

‘They’ve been the best team in the league across the whole season, very efficient, and they do both sides of the game very well.

‘They got plenty of players into our box at the end, but they can also play. Well done to the coaching team, well done to the owners, they’ve invested wisely, and we’re obviously all pleased Langy has gone up.’