Gary Caldwell relieved to end ’emotional’ week on high with vital Wigan victory

Gary Caldwell could not hide his relief after rounding off an “emotional” week with a big win as Wigan moved three points clear of the Sky Bet League One drop zone with a 2-0 victory over Exeter.

It has been just over a month since Caldwell left Exeter to return for a second spell as Wigan manager and, while his new club have picked up markedly in recent weeks, his former side have been in freefall.

And goals in either half from Joe Taylor and Fraser Murray – the latter directly from a corner – allowed the Latics to leapfrog the Grecians in the standings.

“It was a difficult game to prepare for, and a difficult game to go through,” said Caldwell.

“There was a lot of emotion on both benches, I think both teams looked a bit fatigued from playing Saturday-Tuesday-Saturday, and the effort they’ve put in.

“I thought we had a great spirit and a great desire to win the game, even though we didn’t play as well as we have in recent games.

“There were moments where Exeter played well, and we had to really dig in to keep the ball out of our net, which is a really brilliant habit to have.

“It’s another big win for us and, again, winning is a really good habit to get into… especially doing them at home, with clean sheets.

“We know we still have to be a lot better, but I think that’s a brilliant position to be.

“What these players have done in such a short space of time has been incredible – in terms of their attitude, their desire – but we still have to keep working hard we still have to keep improving.”

For Exeter manager Matt Taylor there were few positives to take from another damaging defeat.

“There wasn’t much in the game to start with, I just thought we had Tuesday night’s game in our legs, in terms of the way the team was moving and functioning,” said Taylor, whose side are now above fourth-bottom Blackpool only on goal difference.

“We’ve then given them an awful goal, which is indefensible, I can’t describe it any other way.

“From then on, until the second goal, we were more than in the game, but we didn’t have that quality on a difficult pitch to really hurt them.

“It just didn’t quite happen for us, and then, I’d describe it as our Achilles heel, but it’s more than that… another set-piece goal against.

“We can’t hide away from the run, we can’t hide away from the fact we are losing too many games.

“And even more damaging is losing games like this to teams who are around us, like Wigan have been, and who are now moving away from us.

“We have to be better from start to finish, we have to show a lot more, and we have to stay in games for much longer. The goals today… it’s so, so frustrating.”