Martinez
Liverpool skipper Steven Gerrard has pledged his full support to Roberto Martinez if he is appointed the new manager Reuters

Wigan Athletic manager Roberto Martinez thinks his team will face a tougher match at Arsenal on Monday than they did against league leaders Manchester United in midweek.

Martinez and his side pulled off a huge upset on Wednesday when they beat United 1-0. Sir Alex Ferguson's team, who were on an eight match winning streak in the league, had never lost against Wigan in any of their previous 14 meetings.

The win was a big boost for the relegation battling club. Nevertheless, the Latics boss feels that it's trickier against Arsenal, who have won nine of their last 10 league matches and the last seven at the Emirates Stadium in all competitions.

"Probably this is an even tougher task," Daily Mail quoted Martinez as saying, "We are going away from home and playing against a side who have been as successful as ever at home."

"If you look at Arsenal's last few performances they have been untouchable in the way they are playing their football, controlling games and scoring goals. But we know that if we are at our best we can be competitive," the manager said.

Victory over United took Wigan out of the drop zone for the first time since October and they are now two points clear of their fellow strugglers with five games remaining.

Meanwhile, Martinez earlier received an apology from referees' chief Mike Riley after Wigan's 2-1 defeat at Chelsea last week, in which both goals against the Latics were scored from offside positions. However, after the game against United, where Wigan scored the winner from a corner, replays showed the incident should have been a goal kick, Martinez offered support to the referees and claimed the match officials in England are of a higher standard than the other main leagues in the world.

"All clubs get bad calls, that is the nature of the game," Martinez said. "On Wednesday, we had what I thought was a bad call against us, but then we got a bit of fortune in another call and that levelled it up a little bit," he added.

"You might expect that in games, and against Chelsea, I want to believe that was a one-off situation - where you get several very important calls go against you. I think referees need all the support we can give them, but I have said before - I think the referees in our league are of a better standard than in France, Spain and Italy. We need to keep on helping the level," the Wigan boss added.

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