Steven Schumacher purrs over Bolton’s ‘perfect derby performance’

Steven Schumacher hailed the “perfect derby-day performance” after watching Bolton extend their winning sequence against Wigan to three thanks to a 1-0 victory at the Brick Community Stadium.

Josh Sheehan came up with the only goal of the game with eight minutes to go, with his long-range strike deceiving Wigan goalkeeper Sam Tickle in the air.

But only the brilliance of Tickle – and some poor finishing – had kept Wigan even in the game until the closing stages.

“I think it was a perfect derby performance,” said Schumacher, whose side had won only one of their last seven matches heading in.

“We spoke about having to stand up to Wigan’s physicality, the direct play that they put on you, trying to stop crosses coming into the box, and we did all of that.

“Then we said we needed to play our football, because that’s what we’re good at, and we played some really good stuff at times. In the end, I think we’re deserving winners.

“We haven’t played as well in the last two or three weeks as we have been doing. In certain games in the bad run, we’ve played well and not scored.

“Today, we looked like we were playing really well and not going to score. We got into some brilliant areas, had some great chances and again, probably just not clinical enough.

“That’s probably our only criticism that we can have because the big chances that you get in these big games, you’ve got to take them.

“But what I was really pleased with today is that they stuck to the gameplan. They were absolutely brilliant to a man. The lads who came off the bench as well had a massive impact.

“In the end, it was a really great strike that won us the game. But it was a good performance and it was one, as I say, that we needed.”

For Wigan head coach Ryan Lowe, it was another bad day at the office, with Harrison Bettoni sending the home side’s only real chance wide of the target just before Bolton scored the winner.

“I’m obviously disappointed…massively disappointed if I’m being honest,” he said.

“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. We knew this was a game in which we needed to compete and battle in, and I certainly felt we competed.

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