Martinez Hails His Wounded Hero's

Wigan Athletic pair Chris Kirkland and Paul Scharner battled through the pain barrier to compete in Saturdays win at Turf Moor against Burnley and came through with no further reactions to their existing injuries though Scharner did pick up a head wound and had to leave the game early.

The big Austrian received 10 stitches in a gash that occurred following a clash of heads with Burnley defender Clarke Carlisle with Scharns winning the ball from a corner and flicking it on for Emerson Boyce to steer home Latics 3rd goal of the game.

Also in the wars were Honduras pair Maynor Figueroa and Hendry Thomas, Figgy suffered knee ligament damage that will keep him sidelined for a few weeks whilst Thomas had blurred vision following being struck in the face with the ball.

Latics boss Roberto Martinez was very complimentary of the steely determination that his players showed to come through the pain barrier though Scharner had to be replaced with so much blood gushing out of his head, Martinez said: 'Paul and Chris both played through the pain barrier, while Hendry Thomas took a nasty knock in the face from the ball in the second half which affected his vision.

'It shows you the character that is in the squad and, when you have that attitude - when your team will do anything to win a game - it's something to be proud of.

'Paul battled on to make a difference and now has 10 stitches above his eye to worry about, but there were no reactions to any of the existing injuries.'

Figueroa is obviously more seriously injured and though Martinez says that the left back wanted to continue he too had to be replaced and will be out for a few weeks, Roberto concluded: 'Maynor has a grade two medial ligament problem in his left knee.

'We will assess it further to see how bad he is, but it doesn't look too good.

'Normally with this sort of injury, you are talking about weeks rather than months - but the signs are not nice.

'He actually wanted to carry on, but the injury was serious and he couldn't do so.

'It's not an injury that he would have damaged any further as it was just a tear - it's muscle problems that can get worse - but Maynor felt so uncomfortable that he had to come off.'

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