Wigan Athletic boss delivers 'okay' assessment

Latics remain second-bottom of League One after crashing 1-0 at fellow strugglers Swindon on Tuesday night.

The result lifted Swindon three places to sixth bottom, with Wimbledon slipping into third-bottom spot – meaning another massive six-pointer at the DW tomorrow.

And despite doing it tough for the entirety of the campaign, Richardson’s glass remains half-full given the circumstances.

“From where we could have been – and possibly should have been – we’re in an okay place,” he said. “Now it’s up to us to make those small steps forward.

“Hopefully if we can make those small steps forward relatively quickly, the confidence in the group will grow and we can go from strength to strength.

“And that’s the job for me, the staff and the players, to try and do that.”

Richardson’s primary task is trying to fashion some understanding and continuity into a playing squad that’s been mix-and-match for most of the season.

“It was another new back four on Tuesday, they’re on the coach for the first time, and these lads need games to get to know each other’s play, each other’s characters, strengths and weaknesses,” acknowledged Richardson.

“Individual partnerships are so important in football, the units are important, and the realisation of the whole job at hand becomes important.

“We’ve dealt with so much already this season, but now we’ve turned into the second half of the campaign, the challenge now is to galvanise what we have and go forward as one.

“We’re just very mindful we’ve recruited some lads who haven’t played a great deal of football in the last few months and, in some cases, years.

“With the schedule as it is, we’re asking lads to play a lot of football with not a lot of training and conditioning.

“And if you’re not careful, you’re risking losing some of them for a period of time.

“These lads are here because they want to play football, but they haven’t been playing football for a while.

“It’s up to us to manage those situations as best we can to ensure we get maximum benefit out of it.”

Deadline-day signings Viv Solomon-Otabor and Jamie Proctor – neither of whom travelled to Swindon – are both expected to be added to the Latics squad for the game, although Kyle Joseph is out with a back injury - the severity of which is unknown.

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