Pochettino laments dropped points

Southampton manager Mauricio Pochettino insists his side were unlucky to be held to a 2-2 draw by Wigan at the DW Stadium on Saturday.

Wigan opened the scoring through Gary Caldwell before the visitors responded in the second half with a Rickie Lambert equaliser.

After Morgan Schneiderlin looked to have netted the winning goal in the 85th minute, a Shaun Maloney effort in the dying minutes secured a point for Wigan.

Pochettino believes his side ‘deserved the victory’.

“Yes, I am frustrated,” he told reporters. “Same as the rest of the boys because the team has played a great match today.

“The effort that the team has put into it, they deserved the victory today.”

When asked if he was finding English football to be crueller than his time in Spain with La Liga outfit Espanyol, Pochettino lamented his poor fortune in recent games.

“Cruel? No because that’s football.” he said. “It is luck, sometimes you have luck and sometimes you don’t but the thing is you have to look for your own luck.”

Pochettino also expressed uncertainty over the prognosis for Gaston Ramirez, who picked up a knock during the first half of the game.

“He had a big bang in the first half and he has had a dead leg,” he said. “He couldn’t move it much.

“Until they do some tests, they do not know if he’s injured or not.”

Wigan manager Roberto Martinez was pleased to come away with a point after his side seemed headed for their 15th league defeat of the season.

The Spaniard said his side found it difficult to handle Southampton’s pressure on the ball but took positives salvaging a result.

“It’s a point gained. We knew Southampton would press us and stop us from being on the ball. I feel we accepted that,” Martinez said.

“Once we went 1-0 up we played like we had something to lose. We couldn’t find space behind them because they were well organised and squeezed high up, pressing very effectively.

“We couldn’t be our normal selves. In the second half I thought we defended very well but they had too much of the ball for our liking.

“I have to give credit to Southampton for how they stopped us playing, but we showed incredible character and determination to get back level.”