Sorensen save sets the Tone for Villa
Wigan had been striving for a fifth consecutive win and conjured the better scoring chances. Their best effort came to grief on a post, Villa's Isaiah Osbourne being spared a second-half own goal by the same part of the same upright that frustrated Peter Whittingham early on.
Paul Jewell, declared himself "very pleased" with his team, which lacked the injured Emile Heskey and had Arjan de Zeeuw playing despite having been unable to train all week.
"I just wish it had been away from home because a 0-0 away always sounds better," the Wigan manager said. "All that was missing was a goal."
The Times
Aims Still high after Stalemate
There are lies, damned lies and matches at the JJB Stadium. Never before have Wigan Athletic been held to a goalless draw in the Barclays Premiership, in a top-flight history stretching back 50 matches, and if yesterday's match was more one for the statisticians than the hedonists, both teams could claim to have substantiated their relative places in the grand scheme of things.
Only Manchester United have pulled in a bigger crowd at Wigan this season.
Paul Jewell was satisfied with his team's performance, especially on the back of the four successive wins that preceded it. “I thought it was terrific and the only thing missing was the goals,”
The Guardian
Jewell and O'Neil find Value in Noughts
It says much for Martin O'Neill's organisational and motivational skills that a bunch of players as collectively limited as this Aston Villa side might have gone into third place in the Premiership had they defeated Wigan Athletic yesterday lunchtime. This was always going to be a tight match, although after Thomas Sorensen saved from Lee McCulloch's header inside the first minute the statistical inevitability of a goalless conclusion pressed down like a suffocating pillow.
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