Manchester City 0 Wigan Athletic 1: Folan thrives as Wigan leapfrog freefalling City

Three teams from four? Try three from at least six in serious danger of relegation from the Premiership, one of which is assuredly Manchester City following yesterday's potentially pivotal defeat to Wigan Athletic.

For several weeks now, Wigan have appeared the only team in danger of falling into the bottom three. But on the back of 10 points from their previous five games, Paul Jewell's team have climbed away from that precarious 17th position, which is now occupied by their north-west rivals. In doing so, they have left City - among others - looking apprehensively over their shoulders, suddenly vulnerable to a late run from any of Watford, Charlton or West Ham.

The Eastlands outfit have now gone over two months without a win in the Premiership. They do have two games in hand on all their rivals, soon to become three on account of their run to the sixth round of the FA Cup, but with trips to Arsenal, Spurs and Newcastle, and home fixtures against Liverpool, Chelsea and Manchester United, nothing can be taken for granted.

Yesterday's game was decided by a single goal. Caleb Folan's second strike since joining from Chesterfield in January proved enough to earn a Wigan a League double over City, and match the score in the corresponding fixture here last March.

"It's a massive result for us and hopefully will prove to be very important," said Jewell, the Wigan manager. "It's certainly dragged a few other teams into the battle. But there's still a long way to go and we've got to kick on now."

Wigan were the more coherent team and deservedly took the lead after 18 minutes. A long free-kick was pumped into the City area and while Richard Dunne competed for the first ball with Emile Heskey, there was no blue shirt in sight when it dropped towards Folan. With Nicky Weaver stranded on his line, the young forward headed home unchallenged.

The sum of City's efforts in a woeful first half were two efforts from defender Micah Richards following corners - one cleared off the line by Folan and the other screwed wide.

It came as little surprise when Pearce introduced Emile Mpenza, City's recent loan signing from Qatar outfit Al-Rayyan, for his debut at half-time and the Belgian's presence briefly rejuvenated City. He almost converted DaMarcus Beasley's cross then set up the American for a shot from inside the area that John Filan had to save with his legs as Wigan struggled to keep possession.

Despite the improvement, an equaliser never arrived and nor, in truth, did City deserve one. Their performance was summed up by a bizarre passage of play in added time when several Wigan attackers were lining up to add a second goal and no City players appeared interested in stopping them. A round of hearty booing at the end and chants of "Psycho, Psycho, sort it out" confirmed that all is far from well on this side of Manchester.

"All I can say to the fans is 'keep supporting us'," said Pearce. "They are fantastic fans and when they buy their tickets and see us lose 1-0 then they're going to have a moan and rightly so. I don't blame them."