Two late goals deny Latics a draw at league leaders

Latics undeservedly lost at the Emirates Stadium after two very late goals from William Gallas and Tomas Rosicky kept Arsenal's place at the top of the table.
Wigan were comfortable for over eighty minutes of the game and defended with great resilience and looked odds on to come away from North London with a well earned goalless draw before the hosts scored twice in as many minutes.

Arsenal captain William Gallas headed into the net from six yards from Bacary Sagna's cross in the 83rd minute, and then two minutes later Tomas Rosicky latched onto substitute Nicklas Bendtner's pass and his shot beat goalkeeper Mike Pollitt via the post.

It was certainly not a result that reflected the match, with Latics making life very hard for the Gunners with a superb defensive performance.

Caretaker boss Frank Barlow had made four changes to the team that started against Spurs a fortnight ago, and that included goalkeeper Pollitt. The former Rotherham shot stopper replaced Chris Kirkland who had suffered from a flu bug all week and only made the bench after being passed fit within an hour of the kick-off. Both Ryan Taylor and David Cotterill were also missing due to illness and club captain Mario Melchiot was also absent due to injury, which meant Kevin Kilbane was named as skipper for the afternoon.

Emile Heskey, who recently recovered from a metatarsal injury joined the Kirkland on the bench whilst there was also start for Soloman Olembe on the right wing. Heskey, in fact made his first appearance for over two months when replaced Olembe with 22 minutes remaining.

Latics had their best chances of breaking the deadlock in the first half, and after 12 minutes, Paul Scharner connected to a Jason Koumas corner but the Austrian headed wide of the target to give Arsene Wengers men a scare.

Then on the half hour, it was Marcus Bent who almost opened the scoring too, with a header, as he sneaked in between two Arsenal defenders to get on the end of an Emmerson Boyce cross, only to be thwarted by Kolo Toure who cleared the danger.

Bent had also put the ball in the net within the first five minutes when he had got around Manuel Almunia in the Arsenal goal to put the ball into an empty net, but the on-loan striker was flagged for offside.

In the second half, the former Everton and Blackburn man almost took advantage of a defensive lapse when Toure and Gallas left too much space, but the Wigan hit man fired wide of the target.
Pollitt had little to do until the 20th minute when he had to make an outstanding save from Emmanual Adebayor to deny the Togo striker a goal. The Arsenal hitman latched onto the ball after neat footwork from Theo Walcott, but Pollitt stetched an arm out to palm the ball around the post.

The Latics goalkeeper was again called into action in the second half as he had to parry away Neves Denilson's free-kick to keep the scores level.

Both Andreas Granqvist and Titus Bramble looked solid in the centre of defence, with the latter making a crucial interception after ten minutes to prevent Walcott's teasing pass in the penalty area reaching Adebayor.

Boyce, who played at right-back, made a brilliant tackle on Adebayor in the second half as he almost capitalised on a move involving Rosicky and Lassana Diarra to deny the strike a shot on target, and Kilbane also worked very hard at left-back and got plenty of tackles in to suppress the Gunners' attack.

New Latics boss Steve Bruce, who was watching in the stands, will be very pleased after watching his new team show a steely determination to take a point of the Premier League leaders, and had they done so it would have been thoroughly deserved.

LATICS: Pollitt; Boyce, Bramble, Granqvist, Kilbane (c); Landzaat, Scharner, Brown, Olembe (Heskey 68); Koumas; Bent (Sibierski 83).

SUBS: Kirkland, Hall, Skoko.

BOOKING: Brown, Granqvist, Bent, Kilbane, Heskey.

ARSENAL: Almunia; Sagna, Toure, Gallas (c), Clichy; Eboue (Eduardo 68), Diarra, Denilson, Rosicky; Walcott (Bendter 78), Adebayor.

SUBS: Lehmann, Senderos, Song.

BOOKING: Gallas

GOALS: Gallas 82, Rosicky 84

REFEREE: Peter Walton (Northamptonshire).