Wigan Athletic boss reacts to home defeat to Watford

Just as they had at Championship leaders QPR last week, Latics gave as good as they got against another of the promotion favourites in Watford.

After falling to two set-piece goals at Loftus Road, this time one was enough for the Hornets to pick up the win through Joao Pedro's header with three minutes to go.

With Will Keane nodding against the post in the opening 10 minutes and Jack Whatmough heading against the bar in the seventh added minute, the Latics boss cut a wounded figure after the game.

"It's frustrating for sure," he said. "Could the lads have given us any more? Possibly not.

"But the last two games have been decided by big moments from set-pieces in both boxes.

"We could have had six points, we should have had at least two points, and we've come away with nothing.

"That's despite the performance levels being very high, and we're under no illusions about the task we're up against.

"Again today, it's a Premier League, international quality manager, with 15-16 players who were playing in the Premier League last year.

"I thought we took them on and went toe to toe for the vast majority of the game, but one of theirs pops his chance in and we hit the post and the bar.

"I don't think we just battled well today, I thought we played well too.

"We know where our fight is, and where our fight will be.

"We look back 15-16 months to the opening day of last season at Sunderland, and I'd like to think it's been a gradual process of improvement along the way.

"I take a lot of personal pride out of that, and it is hard to criticise the players even when results aren't going our way.

"Most of the games we've lost we could have drawn, and most of the games we've drawn we could have won.

"We have got to keep our morale, our momentum, and our beliefs, because there's always another challenge 72 hours away."