Wigan Athletic boss highlights 'season's best' offering in victory at champions Portsmouth

Latics gatecrashed the Pompey party at Fratton Park in style, with Luke Chambers' maiden senior goal giving them a thoroughly deserved lead at the break.

It could easily have been even more, such was Latics' dominance, and the home side almost made them pay in the second half.

Only a stunning display from England Under-21 goalkeeper Sam Tickle kept Latics in front, and the points looked safe when skipper Josh Magennis - off the bench - doubled the l;ead with seven minutes to go.

Kusini Yengi pulled one back two minutes later - only after Tickle had somehow tipped another shot onto the Latics bar - but the visitors held on for a big three points.

"It was a game of two halves again," acknowledged Maloney. "The first half was probably the best we've played all season against a very good side, I thought we were absolutely brilliant

"If anything, we should have been more than one goal up, and then the game's very, very different.

"We had to hang on a bit in the last 20 minutes, but again it was two sides of a performance.

"I read what Portsmouth said before the game, I heard they wanted 100 points, they were on a very long winning run.

"But we also wanted to win the game, we had a lot of fans travelling a very long way, and we wanted to send them home with three points.

"I say it every week how much they mean to the club, the players and to me, they really mean a lot, and I'm really glad we could give them the result they wanted.

"We had a lot of chances apart from the goals, we caused them a lot of trouble in those wide areas.

"Being over critical, we should put more of those chances away, we were that good.

"And the second half was the complete opposite, we relied on our goalkeeper again to make some amazing saves, we had to put heads in where it hurt."

On Latics' tendency to drop their levels for part of a game, Maloney continued: "It's been like that too many times this season, and I need to challenge the players more next season.

"We were very, very good for 60 minutes at Lincoln last week, and again for 45 minutes this week.

"If we can like that for 45-60 minutes, why can't we play like that for 90 minutes?

"We've shown what we can do against the very best team in this division, we know where we need to improve."

Maloney also hailed Pompey, who were given a guard of honour onto the field, and picked up the League One title after the game.

"They've been the best team in the league across the whole season, very efficient, and they do both sides of the game very well," he added.

"They got plenty of players into our box at the end, but they can also play.

"Well done to the coaching team, well done to the owners, they've invested wisely, and we're obviously all pleased Langy has gone up."