Wigan were comfortable until Malone turned his and Derby's night around by crossing for Bennett to acrobatically hook the ball in from 12 yards in the 62nd minute.

It ended Derby's seven-hour goal drought in the Championship and Malone grabbed the winner by stabbing in a Jayden Bogle shot that looked to be going wide in the 78th minute.

"It's an important victory because we had lost three and when things are going against you it takes absolute character and fight and belief to get out of it and that's as proud as I've been this season," Lampard said.

"Mason's strike was incredible and I was saying the last time I felt like that at a game was the Champions League final when Gareth Bale scored the overhead kick.

"I think that goal was similar in terms of the adjustment at the last second and to score from an impossible angle is a special goal for Mason and he should savour it.

"Some cynical people will say he didn't mean it but I think he certainly did, the intention was there and his adjustment in the millisecond made that goal possible."

Lampard also hit out at what he described as "gloom and doom" following a run of four defeats in all competitions.

"This club absolutely wallows in it in different departments," he said. "There are some negative people around and very close to the club that shouldn't be like that but as a team and staff we have to be the ones that aren't."

Wigan manager Paul Cook admitted: "We are disappointed. We feel at the point of the equaliser we were at our most comfortable in the game, we had managed to weather everything.

"I haven't seen the goal back but it's either an absolutely fantastic goal or a little bit lucky, but that's football and you sensed the atmosphere in the stadium change immediately. They became buoyant and on the front foot and we couldn't see it out, it's so disappointing.

"We go home with nothing so there's nothing to be positive about for me. To maintain our status in the league we are going to have to win some games and that's the challenge for us all."

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