By their manager’s admission, Chelsea were seconds from leaving the title chase. One injury-time winner by Frank Lampard later, they are still in Manchester United’s slipstream, waiting for a slip-up.

Another consequence of Saturday’s results is that the hope of finishing second is fast becoming an expectation. When Guus Hiddink took charge, Chelsea were fourth and flailing.

Pre-match, Hiddink had said that Chelsea must win every game to have a chance of catching United. A perfect record over their final 11 Barclays Premier League fixtures is deeply unrealistic for a fitful Chelsea side. But on this evidence the interim manager has mastered an art lost by his predecessor, Luiz Felipe Scolari, especially at home: not playing well and winning.

Perhaps it would be more precise to say, not playing consistently well and winning. In patches, Chelsea were almost irresistible. Although they were unable to padlock their penalty area with the finality of the José Mourinho years after taking the lead, Chelsea’s rabid response to conceding did at least recall the pertinacity of the championship-winning sides.

Chelsea clobbered Wigan Athletic after Olivier Kapo’s equaliser in the 82nd minute and had just enough time to fashion a second goal. John Terry had opened the scoring on the volley with a flamboyant high leg-kick of the sort more commonly seen from dancers in the Moulin Rouge than from centre halves.

Hiddink cooed his admiration for his English goalscorers. “It’s important to have those terrific professionals out there, I had respected them already from outside as long as I had known them, but now I know them from very close and my respect for them has grown, the way they are, not just on the pitch but also off the pitch — and on the pitch they are very special,” he said. “You have to have the basic qualities as a player — they both have that.

“In the key moment of the game, then the real big ones — they are there, in the real moments. The moments that no one expected — but on the other hand from those key players [you expect the unexpected]. They make it happen.”

Lampard put it more succinctly. “The English core of the team is still coming up with the goods because we love the club,” he said. “People talk about our below-par performances at Man United and Liverpool as the ones which have cost us, but they wouldn’t have mattered if we had picked up the basic points at home that we should have done.

“Considering the so-called crisis we have been going through, we are still second in the table and although we are a fair way behind United, we will keep going. They have been on a fantastic run and we have to believe they can’t keep it going for ever. One day they may get some penalty decisions going against them at home and luck can change pretty quickly.”

Oh yes, decisions, glad you mentioned that topic, Frank. Wigan were excellent and unfortunate. Steve Bruce recorded a verdict of death by referee. “There’s times when it makes your blood curl,” the Wigan manager said. “ [Referees] seem to help them all the way.”

Bruce felt that Lampard’s headed winner should have been ruled out by Lee Probert for the scorer’s little push on Mario Melchiot. Lampard’s post-match defence might not convince a jury of his innocence. “It certainly wasn’t blatant — sometimes referees give them, sometimes they don’t — and I would have been upset if the decision had gone against me,” he said.

“It’s easy for them not to give the decisions against the big boys,” Bruce said, before admitting that it was a tendency that worked to his advantage in his days as a Manchester United player. “If they don’t get that, it’s disallowed, there’s absolute eruptions on for weeks and days. It’s easier to give it. I question them \ sometimes, I really do. Sometimes it makes you angry and you think at times, is it all worth it? What can you do? Nothing I can do.”

While Bruce departed West London with nihilism and nil points, Hiddink’s arrival has shored up a season that threatened to come loose from its moorings. But if the creeping sense of futility about Chelsea’s title prospects has vanished, boosted by Liverpool’s struggles, optimism can be no more than cautious while United are in such imperious form.

Chelsea (4-3-3): P Cech 8 - M Mancienne 7, Alex 7, J Terry 8, A Cole 6 - M Ballack 5, J O Mikel 6, F Lampard 7 - S Kalou 6, D Drogba 6, N Anelka 6. Substitutes: J Belletti (for Kalou, 75min), R Quaresma (for Mancienne, 81). Not used: Hilário, B Ivanovic, F Di Santo, F Malouda, P Ferreira. Next: Portsmouth (a).

Wigan (4-5-1): C Kirkland 7 - M Melchiot 6, T Bramble 8, E Boyce 8, M Figueroa 7 - O Kapo 6, L Cattermole 6, M Brown 6, P Scharner 5, C N’Zogbia 7 - A Zaki 5. Substitutes: H Rodallega 5 (for Cattermole, 69min), A Sibierski (for Zaki, 89). Not used: R Kingson, E Edman, T Kupisz, J Routledge, J Holt. Next: West Ham United (h).

Referee: L Probert Attendance: 40,714