Bolton Wanderers vs. Wigan Athletic - The Match Report

Bolton Wanderers vs. Wigan Athletic

Date: Saturday 29^th March 2014

Venue: The Reebok Stadium

Referee: Darren Drysdale

Score: 1-1

Wigan Athletic earned a hard fought point at the Reebok Stadium against a determined Bolton Wanderers side to continue their promotion challenge.

Bolton looked certain to upset the Latics as Lukas Jutkiewicz scored after thirty-one minutes. However, Wigan dug deep and managed to find a rare piece of quality through Nick Powell, who equalised with only two minutes left to play.

Then, in the last minute of added time, Adam Bogdan brilliantly saved a Jordi Gomez penalty to make sure that Bolton got a share of the spoils.

Uwe Rosler’s men have lost only three of their last twenty-five games in all competitions and Bolton looked to make that four defeats early on as they had a string of chances.

Jutkiewicz forced Ali Al-Habsi into a smart save as the Wigan defence parted and allowed the Bolton man too much time.

Wanderers continued to attack Wigan, who were slow off the blocks in this encounter, and they got their reward as Jutkiewicz lost his man and got onto the end of an exquisitely taken Robert Hall free-kick.

This Bolton goal seemed to settle Wigan, bizarrely, and the Latics ended the first half the strongest.

After the break, Bolton didn’t slacken off and they continued their search for a second goal.

Jay Spearing stung the palms of Al-Habsi with a shot from thirty yards out before Tim Ream’s shot was pushed wide by the Omani international.

It was only in the last five minutes of the second half that Wigan perked up and started to look dangerous.

And with what seemed like their first attack of the second half, the Latics scored. Martyn Waghorn hit a hard pass towards Marc-Antoine Fortune, who failed to control the ball. The ball made its way to Powell who placed a shot into the top of the net with just two minutes left to play.

Game on. Wigan began to push for a winner. And in the last minute of the five added minutes at the end of the game, the Latics were awarded a penalty.

Callum McManaman drove down the right wing and into the box only to be clearly fouled by Alex Baptiste.

Up stepped Gomez who placed the ball to his left. Unfortunately, Bogdan was equal to it and made a decent save to keep the scores at 1-1.

Overall, Wigan should be happy with a point because for the majority of the game they were woeful and offered nothing going forward. Hopefully they can regroup and sort themselves out for the visit of Leicester City on Tuesday night.