Manchester City went home with massive 'we got out of jail there' grins on their faces after scraping a 1-1 draw with ten man Wigan. Bramble's fluffed clearance gifted City the lead after 31 seconds, but never had another shot on target all game. Scharner's headed equalizer got Latic's a point.

Steve Bruce's reign as Latics' manager got off to the worst possible start when Denny Landzaat headed an innocuous ball back to Bramble. What Titus should have done was calmly passed the ball back to Kirkland or using his favoured right foot, hooked the ball into touch.

What he ended up doing was stalling enough for Giovanni to catch up with him, before he tried to lay the ball to Kilbane with his weaker left foot. He got the deftest of touches which put the ball right at the City player's feet and he rounded Kirkland to slot the ball home.

Latics fans would have been well within their rights think 'here we go again', but what actually happened was some good passing football. The city defence was working overtime to keep Heskey and Bent out.

Bent in fact, nearly made Andreas Isaksson look daft, when he charged down a back pass from Dunne. The Latics striker however saw the ricochet go out for a throwing instead of back towards goal.

Landzaat had the first real opening but his hard drive was seen wide by the out rushing Isaksson. Koumas was a constant thorn in the side of the City defence and saw his first effort charges down by the totally out of his depth Dunne.

After 25 minutes though, great passing from Wigan saw the City defence totally ripped open. With the ball coming to Koumas, after a cleared header from Valencia's cross, the Welsh ace calmly crossed back over the box for the diving Scharner to head into an empty goal.

The half time score line was nothing short of what this team deserved

Coming out for the second half the crowd really got behind the boys and it wasn't long before we were pressing again, only to see Scharner's run halted by a last ditch tackle from Richards.

Taylor replaced the aching Heskey after 53 minutes and immediately made an impact forcing a fine save from the Swedish stopper to force a corner. From the resulting flag kick Bramble met Koumas' cross only to see his header go agonisingly over the bar.

Koumas also saw a rasping shot charged down by a now dogged Blues defence, just before Captain Mario Melchiot saw red for a two footed lunge on the unimpressive Stephen Ireland.

Mike Riley couldn't go home until he had really stamped his mark on the match. The incompetent referee decided that Latics shouldn't be awarded a penalty as Micah Richards blatantly hand balled inside the area.

In summary, how can Manchester City have come to the JJB lying in third place? They would not have been too surprised if they had gone home with another 4-1 hiding.

Report by Jason Taylor (www.cockneylatic.co.uk)