Shaun Maloney admits his Wigan Athletic side are “ahead of schedule” after starting their Sky Bet League One campaign with two successive wins following a 2-1 victory over Northampton at the DW Stadium.
Having started the campaign with an eight-point deduction for financial issues last season, Wigan are now only two points from wiping out that deficit after a flying start.
Two goals in the last 20 minutes from Charlie Hughes and Callum McManaman gave them victory over Northampton, who had led through a Sam Hoskins free-kick after 24 minutes.
Maloney’s men would move into positive points with another win at Carlisle on Tuesday.
“It’s been a really positive start in the league,” he said.
“We set ourselves a target of six games to get into positive points, so we’re maybe a little ahead of schedule.
“But we know what football can do.
“In terms of today’s game, I thought it opened up in the last 20 minutes, but we had a brilliant feeling at the end.
“And all the credit has to go to the players.
“It was the players that had to see out the last half an hour at Derby, where we had to defend for our lives.
“We had to do the same here for the last 10 minutes plus seven minutes of injury time.
“But the mentality of the young group, I think it’s always a bit of an unknown.
“And we had some big, big performances today to get us over the line.”
Wigan’s matchwinner was McManaman, who is in his third spell at the club, having won a 12-month deal in the summer after training with the side since Maloney’s arrival in January.
“I thought he was brilliant in the first half against Derby, but he’s had a knock on his hip,” added the Wigan boss.
“I would have liked to have started him today, and I ended up needing him longer than I wanted.
“But it was a brilliant day for Callum.
“I’ve seen the progression he’s made while he’s been back here, all the work he’s put in, and I’m so, so happy for him.”
For Northampton boss Jon Brady, it was a case of what might have been.
“It’s a step up in standard and, if you don’t defend right, you get punished, and we were today,” he said.
“We’re still getting there, but today’s performance gave me a lot of confidence in the group.
“On a big pitch like this, it’s very difficult to step on and press like we did in the first half.
“And that’s a big reason why we couldn’t step on as much in the second half.
“We scored a very good goal, that’s the quality Sam possesses.
“We also hit the post, but I’ll compliment Wigan here.
“The blocks in the box won them the game today.
“A lot of our opportunities were what I’d want from my team.
“But their attitude, their never-say-die, their never-give-up, was really commendable.”
Both Brady and his assistant Colin Caldwerwood were yellow carded in the final half an hour by referee Ross Joyce.
“McManaman has poleaxed one of my players, and the referee has done nothing about that,” he added.
“And the fourth official pretends he hasn’t seen it, which is disappointing.
“It’s just the consistency and the dark arts they were using.
“But I’ll leave it there before I say too much.”
'I will keep fighting' - Ten Hag adamant he is the right manager for Man Utd
Erik ten Hag insists that he is the right man for the job at Manchester United despite their 4-0 thrashing at the hands of Crystal Palace on Monday.
Michael Olise netted twice against a sorry United team at Selhurst Park, with Jean-Philippe Mateta and Tyrick Mitchell also getting on the scoresheet.
It is the first time that Palace have done the double over the Red Devils in the Premier League, as United extended their winless run on the road to five games.
There has been a lot of speculation over Ten Hag’s future following a disappointing second campaign in charge, with just one year left on his contract.
Asked if he was the right manager for United, he told Sky Sports: "Absolutely. If the right players are there and available, we have a good squad, but are missing the whole backline – we had problems.
"I will keep fighting. I prepared the team in the best way I could do. It was not good enough, by far – I have to take responsibility for that. But I will find energy and prepare them for Sunday’s game.
"At the end of the day, I have to do it with the players who are available. All season, we have huge [injury] problems. Many times we have sorted it out. Today we didn’t."
United have struggled with injury problems all season, with Harry Maguire and club captain Bruno Fernandes joining the lengthy list of players missing against Palace.
Ten Hag highlighted the lack of defensive options at his disposal but did not make excuses for the poor performance, adding: "It’s clear and obvious – this is underperforming. It’s not good enough. We are very disappointed in this. Our fans were behind us all the way – we should have kept fighting like the fans did.
"There are always reasons. Everyone sees our backline, we have huge problems, but at the end of the day we have to deal with it – we should have done better than we did.
"We know [how damaging it could be], but we have nine points to play, so we have to fight for the nine points."
Man Utd thrashing a 'big statement' but Palace are not surprised, says Eze
Eberechi Eze says Crystal Palace's 4-0 thrashing of Manchester United is a "big statement" but insists there should be little surprise that it happened.
Micheal Olise scored twice as Palace ran riot against the sorry Red Devils at Selhurst Park on Monday.
Jean-Philippe Mateta and Tyrick Mitchell also got in on the act as Palace sealed their first league double over United.
Palace have now won four of their last five Premier League games, with Oliver Glasner having turned the tide in the past few weeks.
Speaking to Sky Sports, Eze said: "It says a lot, it's a big statement, but we're not surprised.
"We know what we're capable of, we know what we can do. The quality we've got in the dressing room is high – we don't see it as a surprise. We know what we came here to do today, it worked.
"You can see we’re creating chances, we're not worried about what's going on behind us. We're attacking, pressing, we're aggressive – we're going to continue to create chances for sure."
Also speaking to Sky Sports, Glasner said: "Congratulations to the team. I think in the first half, we didn't play as well as we could, but we were very efficient and scored very nice goals.
"At half-time, we made some adaptations, and the second half was much better. We created a lot of chances, scored some nice goals, and it's a great win.
"We know we have quality when we get our players in situations to score a goal.
"Good players, a good team spirit, but we must always stay humble. It's not so long ago we were struggling [in a relegation battle]. We are doing well, but we have a lot to improve."
This was Palace's biggest Premier League win since beating Leeds United 5-1 in April 2023, while it also marked their biggest on home soil in the competition since a 5-0 victory over Leicester City in April 2018.
Udinese 1-1 Napoli: Struggling Bianconeri grab last-gasp home draw
Napoli were held to a 1-1 draw at relegation-battling Udinese in Serie A on Monday after a stoppage-time goal by forward Isaac Success cancelled out a Victor Osimhen header.
Osimhen nodded home to give Napoli the lead in the 51st minute after Matteo Politano sent a lofted cross from the right into the middle of the box, and the Nigerian striker headed the ball in off the left post.
The Nigerian thought he doubled their advantage in the 80th minute, but his effort was ruled out for offside, before Success bundled in the leveller in stoppage time, netting from a Thomas Kristensen header.
Napoli moved up to eighth on 51 points from 35 games and are nine points behind both fifth-placed Atalanta and Roma, in sixth.
Data Debrief:
Osimhen is the third Napoli player to score in six matches in a row against a single team in Serie A in the three-points-for-a-win era, after Gonzalo Higuain against Lazio between 2013 and 2016 and Dries Mertens against Bologna between 2016 and 2019.
Despite fighting back to earn a point, Udinese have now failed to win three games under a new manager for the first time since August-September 2010 under Francesco Guidolin.
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