Town boss Joe Royle said he had considered substituting striker Darren Bent prior to the England U21 scoring the goal which took the Blues to the top of the league. Royle felt his side thoroughly deserved their victory over Paul Jewell's men.

The Town manager said that Bent wasn't on top form: "He wasn't having his best game and I did consider substituting him because it wasn't going his way. But I reminded myself he's our top scorer and he only needs one chance. It's nice when it works out."

Royle had praise for Leighton Baines' 40-yard goal but thought it came against the run of play: "The goal's unstoppable and at that stage I was thinking about the injustice of it, but we keep going and all credit to them.

"I've seen it on television and but for the net it would still be travelling - the keeper had no chance.

"I thought we deserved to win, we gradually got into the game and in the second half we were decisively better."

Royle felt that Richard Naylor is more clinical now that he has moved to the defence: "It was a superb freekick, I'm not sure if Naylor would have scored if he was a striker, he's a better finisher as a centre-back.

The Town boss felt that Wigan's twin threat of Nathan Ellington and Jason Roberts caused problems: "I thought they were dangerous on the break, their front two are dangerous in many ways, you have to be aware and they caught us on the hop a few times."

Paul Jewell admitted that Town deserved to win the game: "They had a little more desire than us, that's disappointing. Desire is normally a word associated with us.

"They came into the game, penned us back and won more battles than us, eventually that's cost us the game.

"It was a bit too open for my liking, it was a fast tempo game but I felt we didn't do enough win the game.

"They came at us, give them credit, but a lot of our problems were our own making. The goal we conceded at the end, we had good possession."

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