When, in the final weeks of every season, Sir Alex Ferguson makes dark mutterings about it being grim up North, trips to the JJB Stadium are not usually what he has in mind. He confidently predicts slip-ups for Manchester United’s title rivals at Ewood Park and the Reebok Stadium, not to mention on Merseyside or in the North East, but even he could not have expected Arsenal to have come unstuck against Wigan Athletic – not even on a pitch that Arsène Wenger called “a disaster”.

As the final whistle blew, grown men embraced in the stands and the stadium DJ sought to capitalise on the euphoric mood by putting on Status Quo’s Rockin’ All Over The World. Thirty miles to the southeast, at his home in Wilmslow, Ferguson was no doubt rockin’ along to a celebratory tune of his own, with Arsenal’s third consecutive Barclays Premier League draw handing the initiative back to United in the title race.

Five days after a famous victory over the aristocrats of AC Milan in the Champions League, a trip to Wigan was always likely to represent a comedown for Arsenal, but Wenger felt that it was one his players were equipped to deal with. What they could not handle, he claimed, was the playing surface at the JJB Stadium, which, if not exactly a quagmire of the type synonymous with football in previous decades, was not conducive to the flowing, one-touch play that is fundamental to the Arsenal philosophy.

“I don’t want to take anything away from Wigan’s performance, but, frankly, the pitch is a disaster,” the Arsenal manager said. “It is disrespectful to the fans who come and pay money for that. We have to prepare mentally and physically for the pitch. We did what we could and we gave absolutely everything, but we’re going through a patch at the moment where I feel we are a bit unlucky.

“It is two points dropped and it is tighter than ever because of that, but the team is focused and we want to remain calm and focused as a team.”

The worry for Wenger is that the performance in the San Siro, wonderful as it was, represented the exception rather than the norm for his team in recent weeks; it is their only victory in the past six matches in all competitions.

They could cite numerous missed chances yesterday, as well as the form of Chris Kirkland in the Wigan goal, but there was a lack of fluency. The pitch was probably one factor in that, but so was Wigan’s performance, which strengthened the theory again doing the rounds – one that Wenger finds unnerving – that Arsenal do not like physical opponents.

Wigan were combative yesterday, with Michael Brown and Wilson Palacios intent on making life difficult for Arsenal in a congested midfield, but just like Portsmouth in the FA Cup sixth round at Old Trafford the previous afternoon, Steve Bruce’s team competed well within the laws of the game and they were well organised, showing why they have kept clean sheets in four of their past five matches. (Coincidentally, Titus Bramble was dropped from the starting lineup at the start of this run.) Bruce felt that Wigan might even have sneaked all three points in the closing stages.

Although Kirkland saved well at the feet of Emmanuel Adebayor in the first minute and Cesc Fàbregas in the last, Wigan could cite near-misses for Antonio Valencia and Jason Koumas, who had shots saved at full stretch by Manuel Almunia, both of them coming at the end of moves that suggested the home team would also have liked to play football, if only the pitch had allowed it. “We all know a bad pitch is a leveller,” Bruce said. “But I’ve got some good players here, too, like Valencia, who wants to run with the ball but finds it impossible. It’s awful. We know it’s awful. The groundsman is doing everything he can. He’s here 15 hours a day, but when we’ve got the rugby league team playing on it as well, there’s nothing much we can do.”

Bruce lamented that he encountered similar problems when he was at Birmingham City. “What’s your garden like?” someone asked him. Given that Wigan suddenly find themselves in mid-table, the obvious answer was rosy.

How they rated

Wigan
4-4-2

C Kirkland 8
M Melchiot 7
E Boyce 7
P Scharner 6
E Edman 6
L A Valencia 7
W Palacios 7
M Brown 6
J Koumas 7
M King Y 5
E Heskey 6

Substitutes
A Sibierski Y 6 (for Heskey, 55min), K Kilbane (for King, 87). Not used: M Pollitt, T Bramble, R Taylor.
Next: Bolton Wanderers (h).

Arsenal
4-4-2

M Almunia 7
B Sagna 7
W Gallas 6
P Senderos 6
G Clichy 7
F Fàbregas 6
M Flamini 6
Gilberto Silva Y 5
A Hleb 6
N Bendtner Y 6
E Adebayor 6

Substitutes
K Touré 5 (for Gilberto, 65min), R van Persie 5 (for Bendtner, 65). Not used: J Lehmann, J Hoyte, A Song.
Next: Middlesbrough (h).

Referee R Styles

Attendance 19,676

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Sepp Blatter, the Fifa president, will launch his own investigation into the tackle by Matthew Taylor, the Birmingham City defender, that left Eduardo da Silva, the Arsenal forward, with a badly broken leg. Blatter, who announced in The Times last week that he wanted a crackdown on violent tackles, said: “We will ask for the file. If we [Fifa] feel it [the three-match suspension] is not enough, then we will come back on that.”

Blatter asked: “Why the hell should footballers demolish each other? You do not see dentists trying to destroy each other, or painters trying to destroy painters.”