Wigan Athletic chief makes Joe Taylor prediction - and reveals reason for Maleace Asamoah Jnr absence

The 23-year-old joined Latics on Thursday afternoon from League One rivals Huddersfield Town on loan for the rest of the campaign.

And the Latics fans got their first sight of him when he replaced Dara Costelloe for the last half an hour of a disappointing derby day.

"I was very tempted to start him, I have to say," revealed Lowe, who stuck with the team that had won at Championship high-flyers Preston North End in the FA Cup the previous weekend.

"But Dara has been playing well, and the performance was so good last week...I thought the lads who started at Preston were well worthy of staying in the team and keeping their shirts.

"It was good to get Joe on for the last half an hour, and I'm delighted to have him in the building.

"We'll get him up to speed on the training ground and I'm sure he'll be an asset for this club between now and the end of the season.

Taylor dovetailed up top with youngster Harrison Bettoni, who came closest to scoring for Latics, only to steer Callum Wright's cross wide of the target from close range.

"Harrison managed to get a clean contact - if anything it's probably too clean," mused Lowe. "But other than there, there were no other real moments where we thought we should have scored.

"We've had games where we've had plenty of chances and not scored...today wasn't one of those."

Lowe also revealed the thought process behind Maleace Asamoah Jnr being left out of the 18 after his brilliant cameo off the bench at Preston.

"There was no injury, we just wanted to get Joe involved as quickly as possible," added Lowe. "It was maybe tough on Maleace, but that's what happens when you add more quality to the group.

"Maleace has a great attitude, but sometimes we have to go with what we think for certain games. He knows he's still got work to do, we know that, and we can only name seven subs in league games."