PUL NO PUNCHES
Boro boss blames his men for dropping points
TONY PULIS admitted Middlesbrough only had themselves to blame for not picking up all three points at strugglers Wigan Athletic.
Neither side were able to break the deadlock at the DW Stadium, with the home side being by far the happier to come away with a point.
Boro squandered a giltedged chance in either half, with striker Britt Assombalonga missing an open goal before the break.
After the restart, Ashley Fletcher rounded Wigan goalkeeper Jamie Jones only to fire into the sidenetting.
And Pulis (above) was left to reflect on two points that got away.
He said: “The players have given it everything again.
“There’s no easy games in this league, coming to Wigan is not easy – not with the results they’ve had here.
“But you need to take your chances, and it’s the same old story.
“We had more opportunities again today, I saw four occasions when we could have played people in.
“They are simple passes, and we’re overplaying.
“And when we do get the really clear goalscoring opportunities, like we did, we’ve got to be scoring them.”
Wigan have picked up only three points from losing positions and Pulis felt the opening goal was always going to be decisive.
“We scored a goal at a good time at Blackburn recently, and we went on to control the game,” he added. “We needed to do that here, but we didn’t. “They set themselves up really, really solid.” On the flip side, Wigan boss Paul Cook was more than happy to extend his side’s unbeaten run to five matches. “I would suggest that was a fair result,” he said. “If someone had offered us a point before the game, we’d have taken it.” He added: “It was always going to need a flair player to produce a moment of magic to win the game, and neither team were able to do that.”