Wigan Athletic boss Leam Richardson wants Latics to be competitive in every game

For others, their focus was already on the battle to avoid the drop.

Leam Richardson, preparing to welcome fans to the DW Stadium for Saturday’s match against Rotherham, has a different target – to take charge of a side which is consistently competitive.

“What does success look like? I think it’s where we can be competitive in every single game,” he said.

“I think we’re still very much learning about ourselves.

“We’re learning about what the squad might look like at the end of August, in December, what’s happened, and what might happen in the second half of the season.

“We know the kind of teams that will probably be up in the promotion picture, in the top half this year – and I won’t name them. But if we can go from where we were, to put ourselves in that bracket, we’ll have made some good strides.

“But to reiterate, we have to be careful where we actually pitch ourselves, from where we’ve come from, and how vulnerable we still are in some areas of the squad.”

Richardson (below) guided Latics to League One safety last year and from that squad, five senior players remained.

He has been busy over the summer strengthening the squad, and trying to help the newcomers settle in quickly.

Latics had five debutants in the starting line-up at Sunderland last Saturday – Ben Amos, Jack Whatmough, Tom Naylor, Charlie Wyke and goal-scorer Gwion Edwards – while Max Power made his ‘second debut’ for the club.

And yesterday they secured Newcastle defender Kell Watts on loan. But Richardson says it will need more work, more time and more bodies to get the side where he wants.

“I think people have to be respectful and mindful of what’s happened here,” he said.

“We stayed up by a point, and we were left with five players.

“We knew we had a lot of work to do over the off-season.

“You can see we’re still in the infancy of rebuilding, and we’re making small steps to where we want to be.

“If people think that a few weeks later we’re going to be disrespecting teams like Sunderland, Sheffield Wednesday, Ipswich and the rest, and blitz through this league, they’re mistaken.

“We’ve got new staff as well as new players getting to know each other, and you have to respect that.

“We obviously want to get to a place, and it’s going to take a lot of hard work to get there.

“I’ve been fortunate enough to be promoted out of this league four seasons ago, and in my opinion we would need a healthier squad than what we have now.

“It goes without saying, but we’re talking about quality as well as quantity.

“We’re still some way off where we want to be, if we want to be competitive.

“From where we were a couple of months ago, we’re in an ‘okay’ place.

“But we’re very mindful of the amount of bodies we have, and the (lack of) depth we have in certain areas.

“We were lucky enough to be promoted out of this league four years ago, so we already have a good idea of what’s needed.

“And in my opinion, I still think we’re way off.”

One of the silver linings to last season’s dark cloud – other than survival – was the emergence of a crop of homegrown stars, such as Luke Robinson and Callum Lang. And Richardson will again be leaning on those youngsters this season, though he hopes to manage their development careful.

“We’ve got a number of young players in and around the squad, and you have to be very careful in that situation,” he said.

“We’re asking them to play at places like the Stadium of Light, in front of 40,000 people, and Hillsborough with 30,000 people.

“Expectations in some quarters will be at a certain level, and I think it would be wrong to put too much pressure on those kind of lads.

“These are young lads who are still learning, and who just want to play football.

“Yes they’ve done great in pre-season, and they’ve supported a group that is relatively short in numbers.

“But at the same time, we need to be mindful of the criteria we’re asking them to fill over the course of a long season.”