NEIL Lennon clung gratefully to a point at Wigan Athletic – but to describe him as pleased would be pushing it.

Once again the Wanderers boss could only stand and watch as his side threw away points in stoppage time.

For the late plot twist at the DW Stadium read previous spoilers against Liverpool, Wolves, Reading, Blackburn and Watford.

It is becoming a well-worn story and Lennon is feeling it just as much as the fans.

More than 4,000 made the journey to Wigan, singing loud and proud despite never seeing their team at anything like its best.

When Tom Walker’s deflected goal went in, it looked like Wanderers had finally come up against a side whose luck was worse than their own.

But then the fourth official flashed up his neon board and all logic once again flew out of the window.

One well-taken Marytn Waghorn strike later and it was difficult to begrudge the Latics a point but nonetheless a bitter pill for Lennon to swallow.

“We’ve been here before,” the manager said, “I’m sick of talking about late goals but at least this time I felt Wigan deserved something out of the game.

“Again we’ve conceded when we should have seen it out but at least this time I felt they were the better team.

“It doesn’t make me feel any better, though. Benny (Ben Amos) has got us out of jail with a couple of great saves and our play, apart from Emile Heskey, going forward was not good at all.

“We looked brighter in the first half but we started to lose our way.

"We had to change the team and the formation. It wasn’t good enough from our point of view.

“We did better in the first half but after the break we couldn’t get Rochinha into the game. We were starting to come under a lot of physical pressure and we needed to buff things up a little bit.

“When Davies came on we were looking for a little more strength up front because apart from Heskey we were very light.”

Lennon felt hard done-by with the winning goal, claiming his defender Tim Ream had been fouled as he challenged Harry Maguire for William Kvist’s long throw.

But the Whites boss couldn’t argue with the quality of Martyn Waghorn’s finish – a fine overhead kick which bounced down over the line off the bar.

“I think for their goal there was a push in Tim Ream’s back, Maguire came across him, and I don’t know why we haven’t dealt with the second ball. But to be fair to Waghorn it was a terrific finish,” he said.

“He was probably the only player on the pitch who would have managed that."

One of the day’s bright points was a first senior goal for academy graduate Tom Walker – aided, it must be said, by a giant deflection off Maguire in the 70th minute.

“He hit it and it got a big deflection, so there was definitely a slice of luck for the goal,” Lennon said. “It was against the run of play too.

“But I’m pleased for Tom. He worked hard but he was tiring towards the end so we needed to make the change. The experience will do him good, of course.”