Dzeko answers Mancini's call to halt the slide This was hardly the Manchester City effervescence which we have become accustomed to seeing illuminate the Premier League and brush aside its lesser mortals but Roberto Mancini has been asking for a few 1-0 wins and there are few that he will be more than satisfied to procure. The opposition, rooted to the foot of the Premier League table again last night, were pitiful at times and revealed an inability to defend which suggests that they have a very long road ahead to find survival. But it was also a City side which had been reconstituted without two core players - Vincent Kompany and Yaya Touré - and who, after consecutive cup defeats, knew they were one defeat away from a mini-crisis. Edin Dzeko rose above the Wigan defence to make the one-goal difference and lift himself from a personal struggle to score which has beset him since 5 November, though it was an English winter's night for Englishmen to step up. Gareth Barry and James Milner were the men who took City back three points clear at the top. The stadium told the story of radically different ambitions - the packed City contingent eager for signs that the club's first successive home defeats in three years were an inconvenient blip on the road to world domination and the vast sections of empty Wigan seats revealing everything about a club who look as if they have given up the ghost already. Roberto Martinez, who talks of looking illustrious opposition right in the face and playing "without fear" - or sin miedo to cite the sign-off in his programme notes - seemed to display a little too much good grace in his prior suggestion that City can surpass Barcelona and he watched his side become blinded to the opposition too. That was a shame, because for a moment his side saw that there was a chink in the City armour. The absence of Kompany, for the second of his four games under suspension, deprives City of their defensive core as well as their captain and the sight of Joleon Lescott mistiming his jump as the ball arced over his head in the first two minutes caused as much anxiety as that of the dangerous and unpredictable Victor Moses, dancing around Stefan Savic. Mancini's assistant, David Platt, had predicted the cameras would be searching for signs of tension in the Italian from now on. For a time, they got the desired result. But the danger was not enduring. Wigan do possess a threat in Moses, though the defence which had started to strengthen in a promising December has begun to let Martinez down. There is no escaping the susceptibility of Antolin Alcaraz. If his foul on Dzeko in a dangerous place on the left side of City's box was not crime enough, he also remained glued to the turf as Dzeko rose to head David Silva's ensuing free-kick. James McArthur managed a leap of sorts in that pivotal moment but he was nowhere near the striker. No goal had been as comfortable for Dzeko this season as this, his 13th. Wigan sensed an opportunity at the start of the second half, just as at the start of the first. There were appeals when Moses' cross seemed to strike Pablo Zabaleta on the arm and McArthur's shot flew wide. But City's ability to stroll through Wigan almost at will did Mancini's restive pleas for January reinforcements no good. The absence of Touré, with whom Kompany forms such a spine, was of no consequence as Silva and Samir Nasri waltzed around the pitch with almost comic ease at times. Sergio Aguero wriggled beyond so many men after 55 minutes that he appeared about to complete a goal reminiscent of Ricky Villa's, against City in the 1981 FA Cup final, but no shot materialised and Aguero was virtually on top of Dzeko when a shot dribbled in from the Bosnian. The chaos was no less when Gaël Clichy's cross was deflected off Alcaraz, Aguero and Gary Caldwell before rolling just wide of Ali Al Habsi's far post. The Omani goalkeeper has been a remarkable addition to the ranks of Martinez. This was the kind of bleak English evening which his teacher John Burridge, once of City, would have told him about when he had taken him from a hill village where the goats roam and started making good on his promise to turn him into a Premier League goalkeeper. The 30-year-old's double save from Dzeko and Silva, to whom he had watched his hapless defence gift possession to City twice over, underlined his reputation as one of the stories of the season. Martinez found an answer of sorts to all this. Ben Watson, whose penalty strike rescued Wigan's 10 men late on in the draw at Stoke on New Year's Eve which suggested they do have a fearlessness, looked enterprising when he arrived in a double substitution. He seized on an error from Milner and distributed to James McCarthy, who brought a fine save from Joe Hart. The night ended with Mancini recoiling in dismay once again at a refereeing injustice. Substitute Nigel de Jong's ball over the top flummoxed Maynor Figueroa entirely and Aguero, positioned on the halfway line was about to spin on to it and race away alone towards goal when Figueroa raised a hand to stop it. Mancini waved his hand in the way for which he apologised two weeks ago, signalling that Figueroa should be dismissed. He was still arguing his case five minutes later, when the game was in injury time. Now for the real test of the reconstituted City: Tottenham Hotspur, in Manchester in Sunday, will pose a very different kind of threat and, with Harry Redknapp's claims that City have bought their way to victory to flavour the pot, Mancini and his side will be ready for them. Booked: Wigan McCarthy, McArthur, Figueroa. Manchester City Zabaleta, De Jong, Milner. Man of the match Barry Possession: Wigan 48% Manchester City 52%. Attempts on target: Wigan 4 Manchester City 8 Referee M Atkinson (W Yorkshire) Attendance 16,026