Shaun Maloney remains hopeful Wigan can escape drop after late Millwall win

Wigan boss Shaun Maloney insists the club’s latest attempt at a great escape “is on” after they overcame play-off hopefuls Millwall 2-1 at the DW Stadium.

Thelo Aasgaard’s dramatic winner five minutes from time – after George Saville had cancelled out Will Keane’s opener for the Latics – means Wigan still have hope with two matches to play.

On the back of the midweek win at Stoke, Maloney was delighted to see his side once again “win the fight” before pushing home their advantage on the scoreboard.

“I’m very pleased. The performance was very good again, both in and out of possession,” the Wigan manager said.

“There’s definitely some aggression in that final third and we’re now a very good, solid defensive team.

“You always want more as a manager but I can’t not be pleased after that. I mention the word a lot but I was so proud of the team again.”

The joy of victory was slightly tempered by news of wins elsewhere for Blackpool and QPR, but Maloney was not letting that ruin his mood.

“We can’t control the other results,” he said. “As soon as we come in we want to know what they are, but we’re not aware during our own games.

“We just have to win two games and see where it takes us.

“What’s happened over the last two games is we’ve won the fight and that’s allowed us to win the games.

“We know what our end goal is and it’s definitely still on.

“In terms of how we do that, we just have to make sure we win the fight and then the quality will show.”

It was another disappointing day at the office for Millwall, who appear to have gone off the boil at the worst possible time.

“It was very disappointing, we just never got going in the game,” said assistant manager Adam Barrett, who conducted media duties in place of Gary Rowett, who was preparing for Sunday’s London Marathon.

“We got what we deserved, we didn’t deserve anything from the game.

“Big games, pressure games, like today, you know what’s at stake. And we just didn’t turn up at all, which is extremely disappointing.

“I thought they were better than us in every aspect of the game and I have no complaints about the result.

“We didn’t pass the ball well enough, we turned it over cheaply and I thought we were second best in most of the challenges.

“I don’t think we did the basics of the game well enough. We allowed them to get their tails up.

“We managed to get back into it by half-time, we got some words into them, but the second half was more of the same.

“The lads have been magnificent all season and have got themselves into a great position by working really hard.

“When you come into these moments, it’s all about pressure…you see it all the time at the top and at the bottom.

“Teams at the bottom are scrapping for results and they don’t give you anything.”