THE SILENCE FROM THE Manchester City dressing-room was deafening compared with all the hot air being spouted by the club before their heaviest Barclays Premiership defeat for 3½ years. Asked before the match why fewer than 2,000 of his club’s supporters would be making the 25-mile journey from Manchester to Wigan, Stuart Pearce, the City manager, suggested it was down to Wigan Athletic’s decision to charge £35 for a ticket.

“Sometimes the clubs push up the price of tickets for away fans, and in some ways, it is cheating the public,” Pearce said, ignoring the fact that most fans have become disillusioned with City’s dreadful away form, which had seen them lose 13 of their previous 16 league matches on the road before this hiding.

The only people cheating the public at the JJB Stadium on Saturday were the 11 players dressed in dark shirts who raised the white flag as early as the second minute before skulking back to Manchester without uttering so much as a word of apology to the 1,800 fans who ignored the price hikes and abysmal form in the misguided belief that their side might actually have a stomach for a fight.

There was no explanation from Richard Dunne, the captain, about his embarrassing own goal or severe lack of leadership on a day when his manager was forced to give Michael Johnson and Matthew Mills their first top-flight starts because of a lengthening injury list.

Georgios Samaras, the Greece forward, left without explaining when he plans to start justifying his £6 million price tag and Bernardo Corradi, who spurned his side’s best scoring chance, was also lost for words after another inept performance. Instead Pearce did what little talking there was. “The buck stops with me and then the senior players,” the manager said. “I was disappointed one or two of the senior players didn’t perform. We played badly and we have got a hard week of training ahead of us.”

It was expected that Steve McClaren, the England head coach, might come to watch Joey Barton and Micah Richards among others, but he chose, wisely, to stay away. Neither played well, but not much can be meaningfully assessed in a match when only one team are trying to win.

McClaren would have seen a rejuvenated Emile Heskey score one and make one in Wigan’s biggest Premiership success.

As good as it was, Heskey’s goal was overshadowed by an excellent second-half strike by Antonio Valencia, the 21-year-old Ecuador winger, while Henri Camara also scored as Paul Jewell’s side ran riot.