Manchester City 0 Wigan 1
Wigan boss Paul Jewell has steered the boat off the rocks with three wins and a draw in their last five games. The winner came from Caleb Folan, plucked from Chesterfield for a bargain £500,000.
Proof to Pearce that the answer is out there and it does not always take millions. Jewell said: "No one else was in for him because once Wigan go for a player that's it."
The TimesThe ideas of May haunting City
Wigan played like a team who were desperate to climb above their opponents and away from the relegation zone. Caleb Folan, Emile Heskey and Lee McCulloch busted their guts to score the goal that would silence the home crowd and spread apprehension and fear through the City ranks.
Folan, who is playing like the hungriest forward in the Premiership after his £500,000 transfer from Chesterfield in January, was too hot for Richard Dunne and Sylvain Distin to handle.
The Independent
Pearce sides with City's fuming fans
the City manager believes that four more wins are required from their last 11 games but, with Tottenham Hotspur, Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea and - on 6 May - Manchester United lying in wait, it is not obvious where they will come from.
Paul Jewell, Pearce's Wigan counterpart, knows the feeling, having recently watched his own side lose eight successive matches. But that all seems a long time ago now, and with 10 points harvested from their previous five games Wigan are well on course for Premiership survival.
"That run wasn't as bad as it looked because of the teams we were playing," Jewell said. "But I have to say I'm sleeping much better now than I was a few months ago."