Tevez inspires Man City victory at Wigan

By WALTER SIMON
STATS European Football Writer=

LONDON (SE) – Roberto Mancini hailed the importance of Carlos
Tevez after the Argentinian international scored one goal and
made another as Manchester City secured a comfortable 2-0 win
over Wigan at the DW Stadium.

Tevez hit his sixth goal in seven appearances against the Latics
on the stroke of half-time with a precise dinked shot over Wigan
keeper Ali Al-Habsi.

And with twenty minutes remaining, City skipper Tevez turned
provider to tee up midfielder Yaya Toure to poke home and wrap
up all three points for City.

City manager Mancini, whose side now sit fourth, said: "It was
difficult for us to start with, we took a while to get going.

“The pitch was not so good, it was difficult to play on, but we
were aggressive and we played well.

“The first goal was very important for us, in a game like this,
scoring first is always important.

“We had so many chances to score so I was glad when we did.
Tevez scored a very good goal and played very well today.

“I think we did not take too many risks today and we were
organised, especially in the second half \2013 Joe Hart did not have
to make any saves, so I am pleased.”

In front of a sparse Wigan crowd, City started the brighter,
with the industry of James Milner and the powerful runs of Toure
catching the eye.

But the majority of the entertainment in a poor first
twenty-five minutes came from the comically mistimed challenges
made by both sides on the DW Stadium’s wet and slippery surface.

Pablo Zabaleta and Tevez both saw shots curl narrowly wide,
while Franco Di Santo went closest for the home side with a
deflected effort which briefly threatened to wrong-foot City
keeper Hart.

The first half seemed destined to end goalless when City
conjured a breakthrough from nothing. Hart launched a goal-kick
which the Wigan defence failed to deal with and Tevez nipped in
to lift a bouncing ball over Al-Habsi in the Latics goal.

Both sides contributed to a sloppy, disjointed second period,
the only highlight of which was again down to the hard work of
Tevez. Wigan were unable to clear a simple ball into their box
on 70 minutes and Tevez was quickest to react, finding space to
pick out Toure, who stretched his whole 6ft 3in frame to guide
the ball home.

Wigan boss Roberto Martinez said: "We created Manchester City’s
best chances.

“You cannot give these sort of goals away in the Premier League
and we really let ourselves down.

“If you look at today’s performance I don’t think we looked
solid and from time-to-time we let our supporters down. We will
sit down and see how we can improve.”