AN ABSORBING contest as 0-0 draws go, but one that settles nothing. Both teams had their moments, both may feel simultaneously aggrieved and relieved, but Wigan Athletic are almost safe and, while Reading remain in grave peril, they remain full of hope after a battling display.

“Not a feast for the eyes,” said Reading manager Steve Coppell, “but there was so much at stake. I’m happy and I’d have taken a point at three o’clock. Not that we played for a point: we’re just not good enough to dictate the pace and terms of games.”

The mathematics were hardly taxing. A win would have guaranteed Wigan a fourth season of Premier League toil, while Reading arrived not quite needing snookers to escape – indeed, their destiny still lays in their own hands – but desperate to pot colours. Not for the first time in recent weeks, Coppell favoured radical surgery over gentle physiotherapy, making five changes from last week’s capitulation at the Emirates.

With Andre Bikey deployed as midfield enforcer, Reading’s rearguard looked flimsy, even before Marcus Bent’s downwards header bounced up and on to Marcus Hahnemann’s post following Jason Koumas’s ninth-minute corner.

Coppell, whose side were without a goal in four games, was bold in recalling Leroy Lita from Charlton and fielding him alongside Dave Kitson. Republic of Ireland striker Kevin Doyle played in midfield despite Coppell telling him his cousin, her husband and their two children had died in a County Wexford house fire.

“It was his decision to play,” said Coppell. “I can only imagine what he must have been thinking, he was incredibly brave.”

With the elegant Wilson Palacios prowling midfield like a famished panther, albeit one with sometimes errant distribution, Wigan assumed control, but by half-time the home support were chiding Bent and Emile Heskey for their movement, and Reading were making gentle inroads.

Hahnemann tipped over a Michael Brown dipper just 40 seconds after the restart, but with Stephen Hunt becoming more prominent each minute and Doyle pushing further forward, Reading did not yield.

They almost went ahead when James Harper’s hoof upfield found Lita. He left Emmerson Boyce flailing before tickling his shot wide from the tightest of angles.

Lita’s misfortune galvanised the visitors, but still Hahnemann had to be at his most alert to paw aside another Brown howitzer after it had taken a vicious deflection off Harper.

The denouement was fre-netic. The unsighted Chris Kirkland saved Michael Duberry’s header with an authority lacking elsewhere before Ryan Taylor’s brave block foiled Kitson.

Both teams were still trading punches in the three unspeaka-bly tense minutes of added time and when, in a final breakaway, Marlon King found himself bearing down on Hahnemann’s goal, victory seemed inevitable.

Again the American responded superlatively and Reading live to fight another week.

“A draw was fair, but we’re almost there now,” said a smiling Wigan manager Steve Bruce. “This might be the point that takes us over the line.”

Match stats

Star man:
Marcus Hahnemann (Reading)

Player ratings:

Wigan:
Kirkland 6, Melchiot 6 (Taylor 26min, 6), Boyce 5, Scharner 6, Kilbane 6, Valencia 6, Palacios 8, Brown 7, Koumas 6, Bent 5 (Sibierski 64min), Heskey 5 (King 73min)

Reading:
Hahnemann 8, Rosenior 5, Duberry 6, Ingimarsson 6, Shorey 6, Doyle 6 (Little 69min), Bikey 7, Harper 7, Hunt 7, Kitson 6, Lita 6 (Long 86min)