Wigan 1 Everton 1: THE LAST time Wigan Athletic won in front of their home fans four days of the summer transfer window remained and Neil Warnock had yet to fall out with Joey Barton. Warnock's Queens Park Rangers were the 2-0 victims that day – August 27th – the first and so far only team to fall to Roberto Martinez's side at the DW Stadium this season.

Nearly six months on, Warnock has been sacked and from Wigan’s 12 home league outings that sole win has been joined by six defeats and five draws.

After losing the chance here when Victor Anichebe’s late header cancelled out Phil Neville’s 76th-minute own-goal Martinez was asked if he thought a home win could lead to the few that would lift Wigan off the bottom.

“Yes. The performance today will help us a lot,” he said. “Winning gives everyone confidence and belief but what pleased me most was the manner in which we played against an Everton side which is in great form at the moment.”

With 14 matches remaining and five points from safety Martinez’s only option is to keep smiling and hoping. Half of those games are at the DW Stadium and he said: “We are ready – we are ready for the next seven games. Performances like that will keep us up definitely, with the squad we have got.”

Leighton Baines, whose cross was converted by Anichebe, is a former Wigan left back who helped the club to escape relegation with a final day 2-1 win at Sheffield United five years ago. He said of this crop’s hopes of staying up: “They can get out of it. They have done it before and I was part of it myself. It can be done but it is going to be difficult.”

Baines pointed to Everton’s 11th position and how David Moyes adjusted their style to yield results:

“Wigan seem to play pretty well but they are just not winning matches . . . they keep trying to play the same way – you wonder, do they have to adapt a little bit and find a way to win games? We have had to do that, earlier on in the season we weren’t get any results and so we went back to basics and that helped us out.”