Moore delighted with three points

Latics boss Ronie Moore was delighted with the three points that his team picked up at Walsall even if they did it in unfashionable style. He told the official site, "Sometimes you have to win ugly, and that's what we did. There wasn't a lot of football played and it was pretty dire. The ball was in the air too much, the pitch didn't help and our passing was poor. It looked like both sides were in trouble and neither looked like they were going to score. I told the lads at half-time we were better than that and if we had been playing a side which had been bombing we would have conceded one or two early goals."

"We were lucky to get away with it but we upped the tempo and battled on to get the breakthrough in the second half. Once we scored it was just a matter if we could get another one, luckily we did. Yes, it was scrappy. But we just about edged it."

Talking of the Tranmere loss to Barnsley he said, "That was a real sickener and in the dressing room afterwards it felt we had lost. But that shows the desire is there and we are now looking at results above us when we are winning games. We still have the top sides to play at our place, so there is still plenty of time for us. We ground out a result and perhaps five or six weeks ago we might have lost this game, so all we can do is keep on going. We know what the target is, but we are not getting carried away. Anything can happen now and we might look back at some of the points we have thrown away. I just hope we are not going into the last game of the season needing four points because we will all be gutted."

Moore said of goalscorer Luke Beckett (pictured), "He is hardly in the game, but it's a striker thing. You look at Ian Rush and John Aldridge, they never came out of the penalty area or chased channels. When the opportunity comes Luke sticks the knife in and kills teams off. That is what he is all about. He is on a bit of a roll now so let's hope he can keep it going."