Wigan Athletic 2 Middlesbrough 2: Gomez grabs victory out of Boro’s grasp

The home side had led through Grant Holt’s early penalty, but found themselves trailing when George Friend equalised before half-time, and Grant Leadbitter put the Teessiders ahead inside the final quarter.

Gomez, though, ensured a share of the spoils when he drilled home a brilliant free-kick five minutes from time.

Boro manager Tony Mowbray said: “From my point of view, we have a disappointed dressing room, because we thought we had done enough to win the game.

“We worked their goalkeeper a lot more than they worked ours, and we are very disappointed we didn’t win.

“We restricted them to a penalty that we gave them and a free-kick that my goalkeeper says is going straight to him and then takes a flick off someone on the way in.

“I suppose that was a by-product of the way we play. We got caught in possession and had to give away a foul on the edge of the box.

“It is a little bit deflated in there, but there are plenty of positives for us going forward.

“This was a difficult game but Wigan are a top side, who played in the Premier League last year, and who spent a lot of money in the summer.”

It was the second time in the space of four days the Latics had to dig deep in the closing stages to rescue a point. Whereas Leon Barnett had been Tuesday night’s hero against Doncaster, this time it was substitute Gomez.

Manager Owen Coyle said: “We lost two more avoidable goals, and that is proving to be a real problem at the moment.

“The first goal has taken a deflection off Emmerson Boyce, and it should have been dealt with in the wide area before it came in.

“The second goal was just a hopeful punt up the field, which we’ve allowed to bounce, and we had two opportunities to clear but failed to.”

Wigan Athletic: Carson, Boyce, Barnett, Perch, Crainey, McCann (Espinoza 60), McCarthy, McArthur (Gomez 54), Beausejour, Fortune, Holt (McClean 64). Unused substitutes: Rogne, Watson, Nicholls, Dicko.

Middlesbrough: Steele, Richardson (Parnaby 6), Woodgate, Rhys Williams, Friend, Whitehead, Adomah (Halliday 75), Leadbitter, Varga, Carayol (Emnes 66), Jutkiewicz. Unused substitutes: Ledesma, Gibson, Leutwiler, Smallwood.

Referee: David Coote (Nottinghamshire).