Bring on League One - Wigan Athletic striker

The former Manchester United junior scored the opening goal in Friday night's 3-2 victory over Preston, which made it five out of five for Latics over the last fortnight.

And he admits the players are counting down the days to take to the field for real next weekend at Sunderland.

“We’re really excited for next week," he said. “It’s been a tough few weeks in pre-season, but we’ve enjoyed it, and now we’re looking forward to getting underway.

“What a great occasion it’s going to be, up there.

"They’ll have a great atmosphere welcoming their fans back.

"But I’m sure we’ll have a great travelling support ourselves and hopefully we can get off to a good start.

The victory over Preston - which also featured goals from Stephen Humphrys and Callum Lang, and a string of fine saves from goalkeeper Ben Amos - came hot on the heels of the midweek win over Stoke.

And Keane feels the manner of performances - as well as results - bodes well for the future.

“This week we’ve had two good games against Championship teams, and we’ve shown that we can compete," he acknowledged.

“I know they're only friendlies, but we set out to win both games and it’s pleasing to do that.

“We came under pressure in spells of Friday’s game, but I felt like we dealt with it well.

"Ben made a couple of nice saves to keep us in it, and we then scored some nice goals on top of it.

"We know we have a lot to improve on, but there are definitely a lot of positives to take.

“We’ll take the couple of wins at home, build that confidence, and head into next week by getting our preparations right."

Get 20% off our sports subscription package and stay up to date with all the latest Wigan Athletic news with a year’s subscription to WiganToday for less than 9p a day. Use promo code TRANSFER20