REPORT: Wigan Athletic 0 Luton Town 2

Harry Cornick took advantage after a mistake from Steven Caulker – recalled to the starting XI – to open the scoring after only 11 minutes, with his shot taking a big deflection on its way past Ben Amos.

Latics thought they’d equalised midway through the first half when Ashley sent a bullet header off Charlie Hughes’ brilliant cross into the top corner.

However, the celebrations were soon muted with the flag up for offside on the far side.

And Luton doubled their advantage nine minutes after the restart when Elijah Adebayo left Curtis Tilt for dead before slotting past an exposed Amos.

The problems at the club were shown by the loud booing for the decision to bring off young Hughes and Miguel Azeez – two of Latics’ better performers – to make way for Thelo Aasgaard and Callum Lang.

There were more boos at the end, with Latics now winless in their nine matches since Kolo Toure took charge.

One of the few positives was the performance of midfielder Christ Tiehi on his debut, after joining on loan from Slovan Liberec.

But Latics will need every single one of the 16 days before their next game – at Blackburn on February 6 – to put things right.

And the need for more reinforcements before the end of the transfer window may just have become more pressing.