Wigan Athletic chief not getting carried away after Port Vale draw - 'It should never be the case'

Latics were mathematically safe on Saturday, after fourth-bottom Exeter City's 2-2 draw against play-off-chasing Stockport County.

That was possibly a factor in Latics' display during the goalless draw at Port Vale, whose failure to secure three points all-but confirms their drop to the fourth tier.

While Latics' form since Caldwell and David Perkins took charge in mid-February - which would put them in automatic promotion contention over the course of a 46-game campaign - the Latics chief is keeping his feet firmly on the ground.

"That was the first task since coming back to the club," he said. "It should never be the case that we celebrate that, and we should be looking at a much different challenge next season.

"We'll be looking to fight for something at the other end of the table, and trying to achieve something totally different.

"But in the situation we found ourselves in, the players have performed really well and got the points on the board that we needed.

"Now it's about the next phase, getting to the end of the season, and into pre-season, and making sure we never find ourselves in this situation again."

Latics couldn't capitalise on a few decent openings for top scorer Joe Taylor in the first half at Vale Park.

And they were indebted to goalkeeper Sam Tickle for a couple of superb saves in the second half to secure what he felt was a 'hard-earned, well-earned point'.

The Scot added: "I said before the game they'd be tough opposition, they've only lost in 10 games here. They've been on a brilliant run since Jon Brady came into the club, and that reflected how difficult the task was.

"I thought we started the game well, we created some good moments, some good chances in the first half, and we probably needed to take one of them.

"When you create chances away from home, you need to take one of them, because it certainly makes the game a lot easier.

"That would have made the game easier, and in the second half we had to defend, they created a lot of pressure, they sent a lot of balls into our box.

"When we played the ball forward, we looked a threat, dropping the wing-backs and the '10s' deeper to create space for Joe to run into.

"But we stopped doing that, and we were probably guilty of playing too many passes in our own half.

"I thought we defended our box well, and Sam came up with an incredible save late in the game, to secure another clean sheet which is really important.

"That's the foundation that every team needs, to be defensively sound. We have to be a team that's hard to score against and hard to beat, and there's obviously loads of aspects which we can improve on.

"So it's a hard-earned, well-earned point, a big point, which we will take and move on."