TONY PULIS rued Stoke City’s failure to make more of their chances as they were forced to settle for a third successive draw in the Barclays Premier League.
Pulis was frustrated by the fact that they plenty of opportunities to claim all three points at the DW Stadium despite having to come from behind on two occasions.
Strike pair Jon Walters and Peter Crouch bagged their first Premier League goals of the season to cancel out those from Shaun Maloney and Franco Di Santo.
Although City maintained their unbeaten start in the Premier League in claiming a 2-2 draw, Pulis felt that they should have turned it into their first victory.
“We had enough chances, not just to win one game but all three in the Premier League so far,” groaned City’s manager in reflecting on the point at Wigan.
“This is as tough a start as we’ve had in the Premier League and we shouldn’t really be disappointed with the fact that we remain unbeaten at this stage.
“But had we taken our chances at Reading and again here today, then we would have come out of those matches with two victories instead of draws.
“The encouraging thing is that we are creating opportunities, but taking them is the problem and we have to work on rectifying that in the weeks ahead.”
He added: “Our response to going behind in both halves was absolutely fantastic. We’ve come here and had a go at them; they’re a passing team, but we wanted to get after them and we did that for long periods of the game to put them under pressure.”
The fact that City created so many good opportunities when they were chasing the game was due to some extent to the impressive debut of Charlie Adam.
The deadline day signing from Liverpool was introduced as a substitute on the half hour for the injured Andy Wilkinson and made an immediate impact.
“We’re expecting big things of Charlie and he certainly showed that today,” beamed Pulis. “I was tempted to stick him on from the start, but he only joined us yesterday and it is obviously going to take a bit of time for him to settle in and gel with the other lads.
“But he has the ability to put his foot on the ball and pick a pass, which is something we have been missing in the middle of the park for a couple of years.
Wigan boss Roberto Martinez considered that the draw was a point gained rather than two lost even though his side surrendered the lead on two occasions.
“It was such an open game that it could have gone either way,” commented Martinez afterwards. “So I was felt that it was a point gained for us.
“All credit to Stoke; they pushed us to the maximum after we had given them problems with the way that we started the game.”