Wigan Athletic ready for '˜dark, dingy, difficult' test - Roberts

Latics make the trans-Pennine trip to West Yorkshire for the rearranged clash with the Bantams, knowing a win would see them leapfrog second-placed Shrewsbury.

However, they’ll have to arrest a mini-slump, which has seen them win only one of their last five matches – and fall eight points behind leaders Blackburn, albeit with four games in hand.

Roberts says the squad will be taking nothing for granted against a side aiming for a play-off finish.

“It’s always a difficult place to go, Bradford,” Roberts told the Wigan Post.

“It always was under Phil Parkinson, and I’m sure it will be the same under Simon Grayson.

“With the greatest respect, it’s never nice to go there!

“It’s dark and dingy, especially on a Wednesday night, the pitch isn’t great.

“But listen, we’ll have to roll our sleeves up and show what we’re made of.

“We’ve got some big characters in our team, and we’ll be right up for it.

“It’s another chance to get some more points on the board and we have to take it.”

Roberts was the Latics hero at the weekend with the 87th-minute equaliser in a six-goal thriller against Scunthorpe.

However, he says there was little celebrating being done in the home dressing room.

“The atmosphere in there at the end was a little bit gutting that we didn’t go on to win the game,” he acknowledged.

“We’d gone into the game really confident, with the way we’d come back at Blackburn.

“But fair play to Scunthorpe, we’d seen tapes of them but that was the best they’ve played all year. We’ re disappointed but we’ll take our point and move on.”

The late strike was Roberts’ first in Latics colours since his move from Portsmouth last summer.

“I’ve just tried to fire it across goal, if it gets a touch it goes in,” he assessed. If the defender doesn’t get a touch, Griggy knocks it in anyway.

“When you’ve got players like him on the field, you’ve always a chance of scoring.”