Wigan Athletic boss Steve Bruce refuses to be despondent despite last night's defeat to Middlesbrough seeing them drop into the bottom three.

He said: "I thought in the first 10 minutes we were excellent, nice and bright, but then their front two caused us all sorts of problems for a 10 to 15 minute period - and we were lucky to survive.

"I couldn't wait to get in at half-time, have a word and try to change things.

"In the second half, I thought we were a bit more like it. We had the three best chances in the second half and we might have got something from the game.

"We didn't play well in the first half - that was possibly the worst half-an-hour we have had - but we have been playing well lately."