Wigan 2, Albion 1

There won't be a rush to snap up season tickets when they go on general sale today.

And there won't be any cause for celebration at the annual awards dinner at the Amex tonight.

Another low in a season of so many was reached at the DW (that stands for Desperate Wigan) Stadium as Albion blew another chance to help themselves to safety.

They managed to lose to a side that had not won at home since August.

It is frightening how quickly and how far it has all unravelled for both clubs.

They might have been facing each other in the £90 million play-off final at a packed Wembley last May.

Instead they scrapped it out in a sparsely populated ground which not so long ago welcomed the likes of Chelsea and Arsenal routinely as league opponents to avoid falling into League One.

Wigan's wafer-thin hopes have been kept alive, Albion reaffirmed the belief they will be relying on others to get them over the line.

I will be pleasantly gobsmacked if they gain another point now, yet alone two, three or more, from the visit of leaders Watford and at third-placed Middlesbrough, who are also vying with Bournemouth for the two automatic promotion spots.

If that is the case and Albion finish with a dismal point-per-game total of 46, they will be depending on Millwall taking fewer than seven from matches at Blackburn tomorrow night, at home to Derby on Saturday and at Wolves on the final day.

Or, failing that, Rotherham's prospects of overcoming a two-point gap with a game in hand but far inferior goal difference being rocked by a three-point penalty for fielding an ineligible player against them. How sad is that?

How has it come to such a tawdry state of affairs for Albion and, for that matter, Wigan?

Simply really, losing good players and not recruiting good enough players to replace them.

Chris Hughton has exhausted most of the limited options available to him in recent weeks.

He cannot say so, of course, but if he had longer hair he would be pulling it out over the lack of quality, particularly in the final third.

Albion are half a team with only half the players worth keeping. When they defend well they cannot score, when they score they cannot defend.

They have good spells for 15 minutes in a game but that is not good enough.

They have no killer instinct when they are on top and are insecure in the periods when they are not.

There is no shortage of endeavour but there is a chronic absence of matchwinning nous.

They are just not good enough. The table does not lie after 44 games.

The shortcomings in both boxes were epitomised in the key portion of the contest after Dale Stephens equalised early in the second half with a well-controlled volley from the recalled Danny Holla's corner.

You could smell it. The momentum was with them. They pushed on, forced corners and free-kicks, had Wigan under pressure.

Home keeper Scott Carson was much busier than David Stockdale over the course of the contest but Albion blew it.

Kazenga LuaLua, another of the four adjustments Hughton made to the side held at home by Huddersfield, dragged wide when he was clean through.

Not long after Greg Halford, fortunate to escape a tug at the shirt of Marc-Antoine Fortune inside the area, allowed the substitute to bustle past him far too easily.

Stockdale could only paw at Stephens' deflection towards his own net and James Perch was on hand to knock in a scruffy winner.

It had looked as if Stockdale's save with an outstretched foot to deny the clean-through James McClean in first half injury time would be pivotal. In the end it counted for nothing.

Wigan, nodded ahead by local lad Tim Chow on his full debut in midfield from Jermaine Pennant's cross as Albion dozed, still appear destined to say ciao to the Championship.

Hughton, who emerged from the dressing room a long time after the final whistle, reflected on more self-inflicted pain. He said: "In the end we should never have lost. We weren't good enough in the first half and in periods of the game where you are not playing as well as you want you have to make sure you are resolute.

"We conceded a poor goal in that first half. I thought we were better in the second half, get back into the game at 1-1, probably for 15 minutes it looked like the team going to go on to win it was us.

"At that stage you've got to do one or two things. Score, and we had a chance with a one v one, or you have got to make sure you are resolute and don't concede.

"We conceded a very poor goal. We've only got ourselves to blame."

Hughton was referring to one game. He could have been talking about an entire season.