13 April 2021

Sunderland boss Lee Johnson admits strugglers Wigan deserved their victory

13 April 2021

Sunderland boss Lee Johnson held up his hands and admitted Sky Bet League One strugglers Wigan were good value for their 2-1 victory at the DW Stadium.

The Black Cats lost for the second time in four days to dent their automatic promotion hopes.

On the flip side, back-to-back wins over the same period have lifted Wigan out of the relegation zone with five matches to go.

And Johnson was the first to acknowledge his side – who had led through Charlie Wyke before Will Keane and Callum Lang struck for Wigan – got what they deserved.

“I’ll be honest, I didn’t think we deserved it today,” he said.

“Even in the first half-hour where we were fluid on the ball, our off-the-ball connection and distances were always going to play into the hands of any opposition, let alone Wigan who are on good form, and allow them to create space.

“Five or six games ago, we weren’t conceding any shots on target because of our solidness.

“Now, we’re probably chasing it a little bit early, with the thought of going into the top two, and that then leaves us open to being exposed.

“We’ve got to hold our hands up and say ‘look, we weren’t good enough, it’s as simple as that. They deserved to win’.

“It was probably balanced in the middle part of the pitch, but in both boxes, they were better than us.

“This division is tough, pretty much every team has something to play for.

“You’ve got to respect that every opponent is going to give it everything they’ve got.

“Wigan had a good result against Doncaster at the weekend, there was no way we could come here and not be 100 per cent focused and understand what the challenge was.

“For whatever reason, we’ve not been good enough on the day.”

For Wigan boss Leam Richardson it was another massive step towards the greatest of Great Escapes – against all the odds this term.

But he was in no mood to get carried away just yet.

“Obviously you don’t want to do anything to dampen the elation of a fantastic result over a very good team,” he said.

“But it’s my job to let the lads know we haven’t achieved anything yet in our quest to achieve what we set out to do at the start of the season.

“We knew it was going to be a tough task against a Sunderland team who are close to achieving their own targets at the other end of the table.

“We knew we had to meet them head on in certain areas, and try to exploit some other areas with the huge assets we have here.

“If I’m going to be critical, could we have been even better in certain areas?

“But I don’t want to take anything away from any of the lads tonight.

“We worked so hard across the board and, in my opinion, we more than deserved the win.”

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