Wigan Athletic Vs. Manchester United, 2012 Premier League: Final Score 1-0 Wigan As Leaders Stunned

Maybe Manchester United's path to the Premier League crown won't be as easy as they had hoped. The defending champions had won eleven of their last twelve Premier League games and had left Manchester City - their only legitimate rivals in the title race - in the dust, and they should have been able to handle Wigan Athletic at the DW Stadium without much of a problem.

Instead, they put in a very poor performance and paid the price, losing 1-0 to a team that began the day in the relegation zone. At no point did it look like the visitors were in control of the match. At no point did it look like Ali Al-Habsi was going to have to perform miracles in order to rescue a point for Roberto Martinez's men. And at no point did it look as though Wigan would fail to score.

You could argue that the hosts were unlucky not to win by more - they managed to spurn plenty of opportunities to go 1-0 up in the first half before having a Victor Moses goal disallowed thanks to a very soft obstruction call on Gary Caldwell. Wigan would have to wait until after the interval to finally get on the scoresheet, but a wonderful long-range curling effort by Shaun Maloney evaded David de Gea 50 minutes in to give the hosts the lead and they never came particularly close to relinquishing it.

It's a huge result for Wigan, who now sit in 17th place. It's also a big result for the title race, as Manchester City's 4-0 home win against West Bromwich Albion sees them close the gap at the top of the table to five points. The Manchester derby later this month has just gotten very interesting indeed.