The Latics are now firmly rooted in the bottom three and manager Roberto Martinez said of the game: “We are disappointed with the first-half performance, didn’t get to grips with the game and gave a really soft goal away early on.
“It wasn’t anywhere near good enough but the reaction is what pleased me the most. After the break we showed real intent, started to be ourselves and scored an outstanding goal from open play.
“At that point we had the momentum and if anything looked as though we could get a winner but the disappointment once again was the conceding of another soft goal, giving the smallest player on the field a free header inside the box. Conceding goals like that make it very difficult to get anything from games and we need to improve upon it.
“Having said that, I thought Ali was outstanding and back to his normal self again. We had him to thank in the first-half for keeping us in the game and giving us the opportunity to get back on level terms.
“I saw real desire and flashes of quality in the second-half and created more great chances to take a result in the closing stages.
“We have a Christmas programme of games we have to look forward to now and improve on what we’ve seen today.”
Next up for the Latics is the visit of Arsenal for the early kick off on Saturday.