Shaun Maloney: Wigan Athletic boss urges side to repeat survival history

Shaun Maloney scored one of the most important goals in Wigan Athletic history, against Manchester United in 2012. Now manager, Maloney hopes the Latics can repeat that team's survival feat

Shaun Maloney says Wigan can equal their survival feat of 2011-12 if they stay in the Championship.

The Latics need to beat fellow strugglers Reading on Saturday to stand any realistic chance of climbing out of the bottom three.

Maloney says it would be an achievement simply to take it to the final day of the season.

Last month Wigan suffered a three-point deduction for repeated non-payment of wages, and are four points from safety.

Successive wins over Millwall and Stoke have kept them alive, but they need three points - and for either Huddersfield to fail to win at Cardiff, or Rotherham lose at Middlesbrough on Monday, to stay in with a chance.

Maloney was a player under Martinez when they won seven of their last nine Premier League matches in 2011-12, including wins over table-topping Manchester United, plus Liverpool and Arsenal, to surge away from bottom spot.

He said the problems the club has had off the field would make an escape this season just as impressive.

"We have got a chance," he told BBC Radio Manchester. "When you add everything up and take into account the points deduction, for us to be taking it to this point shows the job the players have done.

"I would love for us to take it to the last day. That has to be the biggest motivation we have, to try and win this game on Saturday. Of course results elsewhere have to favour us but if we can take it to the last game, at that moment anything can happen.

"The Premier League moments with Roberto, the form we were in, in those last seven or eight games, was like nothing that had happened before. Form-wise, we were the best team in the league.

"If you add in everything that's happened off the pitch here, the points deduction, if we managed to do this I don't know if it would be the best, but I don't know if there have been any better."

Maloney has managed to get a tune out of Wigan after nine games without a win under Kolo Toure saw the Arsenal legend get the sack in January.

Since taking over, Maloney has had to deal with the off-field issues but his team have won four and drawn six of the last 16 to keep their heads above the tide.

Maloney says the fact Reading are also in the bottom three, after suffering a six-point deduction of their own for breaching a business plan agreed with the EFL, heightens the tension around the game.

"There have been games where we haven't reached the levels we wanted to, but in the last two games the players have been at a very, very good level," said the former Scotland international.

"It's a huge game but every game has felt like that for us - Millwall were really going for the top six.

"But because we're both down in the bottom part of the league it's a huge game. We just have to look forward to that sort of pressure or intensity, and not worry about anything tactical - if we outrun and outfight the opponent we have a chance."