Parky furious at key decisions
WIGAN avoided a record eighth successive away defeat – but Bolton manager Phil Parkinson was left fuming.
Will Buckley looked to have given under-pressure boss Parkinson the perfect 51st-birthday present with an early winner.
But party-pooper Will Grigg denied Wanderers a first win in ten Championship games with a contentious, first-half penalty equaliser.
Parkinson was furious with referee Simon Hooper’s deciison to award the spot-kick and with stoppage-time appeals for handball against Wigan captain Sam Morsy.
“Everyone in the ground, apart from two people, thought Hobbsy’s (Jack Hobbs) challenge wasn’t a penalty,” he said. “With the second one, I thought the rule was if your arms are in an unnatural position then it is a penalty.
“That’s what happened. It was a shame because I thought we played well until their goal. The lads dug deep and we will take the point after the week we have had.”
The “week” included November’s wages not being paid on Friday.
“You can’t fault the resilience of the group of players,” he added. “When you don’t get paid and you are going to work, you’d probably be pretty demotivated. But the lads put it to one side and I am very pleased we put in that performance.”
Wigan boss Paul Cook added: “Both teams were committed trying to win the game, so I think the referee did a decent enough job.”
Challenges flew in from the first whistle and within two minutes Hooper had booked Wanderers’ pair Joe Williams and Craig Noone for fouls. Lee Evans should then have put Lat- ics in front, but blazed high and wide after an inviting cutback from Josh Windass.
Instead, Wanderers netted their first home goal since beating Derby 1-0 on September 29.
Buckley was allowed time and space inside the area to control Pawel Olkowski’s angled cross and step inside to fire home.
Bolton might have added a second when Buckley broke down the Wigan right, but his eventual cross was fractionally in front of the unmarked Christian Doidge.
Then came the visitors’ contentious equaliser. Centre-half Hobbs appeared to touch the ball ahead of his challenge on striker Grigg. Hooper, who controversially disallowed a Charlie Austin goal for Southampton against Watford last month, adjudged otherwise.
Grigg punished the tackle from the spot to register only his fourth club goal of the campaign.
Doidge then turned smartly on the edge of the six-yard box, but couldn’t direct his effort on target.
Wigan were the dominant side early in the second half and, although Windass did put boot to ball with his next effort, his angled right foot effort struck the side netting.
Doidge cleared off his own goal line with Wigan pressing while Wanderers felt they should have had a late penalty chance. Instead, Hooper ruled Morsy hadn’t handled a Mark Beevers shot.