Wigan avoid unwanted record with draw at Bolton

Posted Sunday, December 02, 2018 by PA

Wigan avoided a record eighth successive away defeat by coming from behind to grab a 1-1 Sky Bet Championship draw at neighbours Bolton.

Will Buckley threatened to give under-pressure Bolton boss Phil Parkinson the perfect 51st birthday present with a seventh-minute goal.

Instead, party-pooper Will Grigg denied relegation-threatened Wanderers a first win in 10 Championship games with a contentious, first-half penalty equaliser.

Bolton’s second point in three games was not sufficient to lift them out of the bottom three.

Befitting a derby, the challenges flew in from the first whistle and within two minutes referee Simon Hooper had booked Wanderers pair Joe Williams and Craig Noone for fouls.

Lee Evans should then have put Latics in front but blazed high and wide after an inviting cut-back from Josh Windass.

Instead, Wanderers netted their first home goal since beating Derby 1-0 on September 29.

Buckley was allowed time and space inside the area to control Pawel Olkowski’s angled cross and step inside to fire home right-footed from five yards.

Bolton might have added a second when Buckley broke down the Wigan right but his eventual cross was fractionally in front of unmarked Christian Doidge.

Then came the visitors’ contentious equaliser. Centre-half Jack Hobbs appeared to touch the ball ahead of his challenge on striker Grigg but referee Hooper, who controversially disallowed a Charlie Austin goal for Southampton against Watford last month, adjudged otherwise.

Grigg punished the tackle from the spot to register only his fourth club goal of the campaign and his first since August 22.

Doidge then turned smartly on the edge of the six-yard box but could not direct his effort on target.

Windass mis-kicked in front of goal when any decent contact would surely have put the visitors in front just before the break.

Wigan were the dominant side early in the second half and although Windass did put boot to ball with his next effort, his angled right-foot shot struck the side netting. His next attempt trickled into the gloves of Ben Alnwick.

Both goalscorers made way 22 minutes from time, with Josh Magennis and James Vaughan replacing Buckley and Grigg respectively.

Wigan still looked the most likely side to grab a winner, with keeper Christian Walton redundant in Latics’ goal.

Doidge cleared off his own goal line with Wigan pressing while Wanderers felt they should have had a late penalty chance. Instead, Hooper ruled skipper Samy Morsy had not handled a Mark Beevers shot.