Wigan have backed up their shock victory over Manchester United by beating another Premier League giant, winning 2-1 at third-placed Arsenal to boost hopes of staving off relegation.
Arsenal were looking for a victory that would have put the team eight points clear in third but never recovered from sloppily conceding goals to Franco di Santo and Jordi Gomez in the first eight minutes.
Thomas Vermaelen halved the deficit in the 21st but the visitors held on to record yet another superb victory in their battle to stay up, moving them five points clear of the relegation zone with four matches left.
“We’ve had a difficult time and have had to stick together and really stay strong as a group and we’ve done that,” said Wigan captain Gary Caldwell, who kept league top-scorer Robin van Persie quiet at Emirates Stadium.
“There’s still a long way to go and it’s still going to be a real battle at the bottom.”
Roberto Martinez’s side stunned league leader United 1-0 on Wednesday and they have also beaten Liverpool away in the past month.
Wigan’s only loss since the start of March came at Chelsea, who scored two goals that should have been disallowed for offside, including an injury-time winner.
“We have always had a mental block against the top sides but we went to Liverpool and got rid of that,” Martinez said.
“And against Manchester United and Arsenal, nobody can deny that we deserved the points.”
Arsenal’s first loss at home since January 22 will give renewed hope to their three rivals for the remaining two Champions League qualification spots.
Spurs and Newcastle are five points behind while Chelsea are a further two adrift.
All three have a game in hand over Arsenal, who have four more matches left.
“We were not sharp,” Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger said. “It’s difficult to know why.”
Arsenal huffed and puffed in the final 30 minutes but were short of creativity when it really mattered, leaving Wigan to claim an unlikely first win at Arsenal.
“In the second half, we lost our team-play and cohesion and we tried too much individually,” Wenger said.
“There was no petrol left in the tank.”
Wenger accused Wigan goalkeeper Ali Al-Habsi of ‘disrespectful’ time-wasting as the Oman international repeatedly delayed goal-kicks.
Al-Habsi was booked in the final minute by referee Andre Marriner but Wenger was convinced that should have occurred much earlier.
“I told the fourth official ‘you know what – he will do it the whole game’ because he did it after 10 minutes and with three minutes to go he gets a yellow card,” the Frenchman said.
“It’s disrespectful, frankly, to people who pay big money to watch a game.
“We didn’t play well and we are sorry but the referee didn’t act on that and it is not right.”