In a league of their own

Sunday 10 March 2013

Wigan manager Roberto Martinez was delighted with his side's historic 3-0 quarter-final win over Everton, but was quick to insist that it would not distract from their Premier League relegation battle.

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Neil Faskin

Three goals in just 202 first-half seconds from Maynor Figueroa, Callum McManaman and Jordi Gomez stunned the hosts and sent Wigan into the semi-finals for the first time in their history.

Martinez has consistently maintained that Premier League survival must always be his side's priority, and has tended to field weakened sides in knockout competitions.

"I have said time after time I've made eight or nine changes in the past (in the cup) and since I have arrived at Wigan we want cup success, but not at the expense of the league form," explained the Spaniard. "Making nine or 10 changes is a need in the modern game. The difference now is this season we have a group of 24 players who have shown when they get the opportunity they are competitive."If anything this cup run has given us extra players. I think Callum McManaman showed he is ready to play in the league and (goalkeeper) Joel Robles showed a great level of performance. This cup success is bringing extra competition into the league campaign and that is what we need to get from this success."For all the criticism of Everton's poor showing, Martinez was adamant his side were worthy winners – something he and opposite number David Moyes were agreed on."I think you have to be at your very best at Goodison Park to keep a clean sheet," the Wigan manager added. We played well but more importantly we had incredible concentration levels."You unfortunately get used to people saying if you lose it is because you are Wigan and if you win it is because the opposition was poor."They weren't poor. My players deserve credit for how they stopped Everton. We stopped the full-backs going forward and getting crosses in from dangerous positions."The boos rang around Goodison Park at both half-time and full-time and many fans questioned Moyes' team selection after he opted for Phil Neville, who was withdrawn at half-time, instead of Darron Gibson. However, the Everton manager could not argue with Martinez's assessment of the game."Wigan played well and on the day we didn't play well," he said. "We've not had many of those days this season, probably not had many of those days since January last year."Today was one of those days where it didn't go well at all and we just didn't perform."I thought we tried everything we could at the start of the second half, but on the day we didn't make the goalkeeper work hard enough. We can't argue, Wigan were the better team on the day. We can't complain, we weren't good enough."Elsewhere, Manchester City defender Kolo Toure paid tribute to Carlos Tevez after the Argentinian scored a hat-trick in their 5-0 demolition of Barnsley.Tevez, who was arrested on suspicion of driving whilst disqualified on Thursday, put his off-field problems aside to send City into the semi-finals.Toure said: "He's a great player. We know what he can do and he's shown that again."Tevez opened the scoring after 11 minutes before Edin Dzeko and Aleksandar Kolarov added to the scoreline and Toure felt the early goal was key to ending Barnsley's hope of an upset.He said: "It was a tough game. Barnsley came here and they put us under pressure. But we had a good response by scoring the first goal and the second goal killed the game."

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