A dour contest at the JJB Stadium came to life in stoppage time when Wigan's Maynor Figueroa headed home the only goal of the game. Neither Wigan, or visitor's Tottenham, looked like scoring and the game seemed destined to end goalless until Figueroa netted from Ryan Taylor's corner.
The Latics have now extended their winning streak to four games.
Boss Steve Bruce told Sky Sports it wasn't one of their better performances but would take the three points.
"It wasn't a classic and the result tends to hide a poor performance, particularly the first twenty, twenty five minutes.
"But they showed plenty of resilience and got their rewards late on.
"The confidence of recent results stood us in good stead as you always feel you can nick one but to be honest it had 0-0 written all over it.
"For a club like ours to be seventh is terrific."