Wigan Athletic 0 Chelsea 1

Luiz Felipe Scolari had known this was coming. In the build-up to his Premier League debut, the Brazilian had warned that Wigan Athletic would cause his team "big problems" in his second game in charge. The sight of Chelsea's manager punching the air at the final whistle on Sunday was a telling indication that an awkward hurdle had been cleared.

Where Portsmouth had been dismissed with scintillating ease on the first day of the season, Wigan were held at arm's length, though never with any sense of comfort. Deco conjured the game's decisive goal, but that free-kick, curled gloriously in from distance after only four minutes, was as swashbuckling as Chelsea could muster. Thereafter, this became a test of resilience.

Alex Ferguson has often claimed London sides find life difficult in the wilds of the north-west of England. That may be an urban myth but this was Scolari's first time north of the capital, and, even early in his reign, a small psychological blow has been inflicted.

Nothing, as yet, has fazed him about the English game. "I've never been 'north' but I'm at Chelsea for two seasons, so I must get used to Bolton, Manchester United, Manchester City …" said Scolari in the aftermath. "What I expected, I saw today. It was difficult. Winning 1-0 away from home in England is the same as winning 10-0 elsewhere. Wigan played better than Portsmouth and had players who are healthy, have power and pressured us. I know we didn't play as well as we did last week, but I understand the reasons why."

The visitors pointed to the lack of fitness of Michael Essien, Michael Ballack and Frank Lampard, and to the absence of the injured Mikel John Obi. He also lost Ashley Cole to a dead leg but, in truth, the visitors were winded less by their own ailments and more by Wigan's aggressive energy.

Latics coach Steve Bruce had seen his players fan out to various corners of the globe for midweek internationals - his Hondurans Wilson Palacios and Maynor Figueroa were in Mexico, his Egyptian, Amr Zaki, in Sudan - but they tore into this contest unperturbed.

Zaki twice forced Petr Cech to claw away rasping drives. The substitute Olivier Kapo did likewise in the final exchanges.

Chelsea rode their luck and scored a blistering goal from an individual flash of brilliance. Wigan merited more but were sloppy from their own dead-ball delivery. "Appalling," said Bruce of his side's free-kicks. "It didn't matter who took them, they kept doing the same frigging thing."