Wigan Athletic chief reflects on Bolton Wanderers setback - 'Emotion and occasion got to us'

The visitors dominated for long periods at the Brick, with only the brilliance of Sam Tickle and some poor finishing keeping the game scoreless heading into the final quarter.

Latics could have taken the lead completely against the run of play when Callum Wright's cross found Harrison Bettoni, who could only steer the ball wide of goal.

And Latics were put out of their misery with eight minutes to go when Sheehan's strike from distance wrongfooted Tickle to secure all three points.

"I'm obviously disappointed...massively disappointed if I'm being honest," acknowledged the Latics head coach. "The goal we've conceded, a late one again, is not what we want to do...there's moments before that we can prevent that from happening.

"We limited them to very few good chances, we never really had any clear-cut chances, Harrison probably has the best one in the second half.

"But we were snatching at things, the crosses weren't right, we were off balance when we were shooting, we didn't control the midfield and get on the ball as much as we'd have liked.

"Maybe the emotion of the game, the size of the occasion got to us a little bit.

"I thought the atmosphere was brilliant, the fans were excellent...and maybe that took its toll a little bit on the players...because it wasn't what we expected.

"I'm certainly not blaming the players, because it's a collective thing. I relished the opportunity of this game, I felt we could come in and put on a great performance, like last week, and I told the players that.

"The players had a fantastic week of training, they were bubbly, they were bouncing, they took on instructions and listened to everything we asked them to do.

"We knew this was a game in which we needed to compete and battle in, and I certainly felt we competed...I'm not saying we didn't.

"I just felt we could have done a little bit more collectively, and that's the major source of disappointment."

In all fairness, the scoreline hugely flattered a Latics side who barely laid a glove on their opponents, and didn’t force Bolton goalkeeper Jack Bonham – making his debut – into a save worthy of the name.

Bolton should have taken the lead early on when Mason Burstow fired way off target after Tickle had parried out a Xavier Simons effort into his path.

Tickle was then required to make a fantastic save at point-blank range to keep out a Max Conway header off Amario Cozier-Duberry’s cross.

The second half was very much the same story, with Sam Dalby volleying over the top from close range, before seeing a header brilliantly saved by Tickle

Wigan’s only chance of the game came and went when Bettoni couldn’t hit the target from close range, and Bolton took advantage when Sheehan’s long-range rocket moved all over the place to wrongfoot Tickle.

Sheehan then saw a corner flicked on at the near post and miss the far post by inches, before Cozier-Duberry drilled a low shot just past the post right at the end.