Goals from Fuller and Beattie leave Wigan with no win in seven
STOKE CITY 2 Fuller, 69 Beattie, 76 WIGAN ATHLETIC 0
Report by Paul Chialton
A disappointing game from the Britannia Stadium where goals from Ricardo Fuller and James Beattie won the points for Stoke City.
What had been a fairly eventless game came to life 20 minutes before the end when Fuller held off challenges from Titus Bramble and Maynor Figueroa before firing into the top-left corner.
It means that Wigan now drop to 12th in the league and are without a win in their last seven outings, a record that will no doubt leave Steve Bruce far from happy.
It could have been a different story when, early in the first-half, Paul Scharner who made his 100th league start for Wigan, worked his way past Abdoulaye Faye inside the Stoke penalty area was clearly tripped by the defender only for referee Lee Probert to wave play-on.
Despite that Latics continued to thwart Stoke's attacks with Figueroa and Bramble playing particularly well, standing strong against their opponents physical front-line.
Charles N'Zogbia had the best of the chances twice breaking down the left-wing in the second-half only to run out of options and fire harmlessly over. The Frenchman had looked a threat throughout the game showing good control and linking up well with the hard-working Hugo Rodallega.
Cho Won-Hee made a satisfactory debut, doing all that was asked from him and trying his best to impress. The midfielder could even have got on the score-sheet early on cracking the ball from 30-yards only for Thomas Sorensen to tip over.
But the longer the game went on the less likely it looked that Latics would grab a goal to end their barren run of form and when Fuller put the Potters ahead on seventy minutes, there seemed to be no way back.
James Beattie confirmed that five minutes later, meeting Matthew Etherington's loft to the back-pot and nodding home to wrap-up the game.
One game left for Bruce's men to try and end the season with a smile, with Portsmouth travelling to the JJB next weekend and Latics fans hoping for a repeat of Wednesday night's performance against Man Utd.
