Wigan Athletic boss on Bootle victory

Goals from Thelo Aasgaard, Tom Naylor and Callum Lang maintained Latics' 100 per cent record in their friendly programme.

And Richardson - while wary of the much bigger tests that lie ahead - remains happy with the way things are going.

"Firstly, I'd like to thank Bootle for hosting the game at such short notice, with the couple of cancellations that we had," he said.

"The facilities here are really good, and the people involved are first class.

"And I think the fans that made it over at short notice enjoyed the night.

"The game was excellent for what it was and for what we needed.

"The lads applied themselves very well, and it was another training day for us, another small step towards where we want to be on the first day of the season."

While naturally happy with the result, Richardson is not reading too much into the perfect record.

"Listen, it's pre-season, and no disrespect to anybody but this is not a time to get carried away by winning games," he said.

"It's about installing those habits and those fundamentals into the lads that we've been working on in training that we'll need in the season proper.

"We saw a few flashes of that again, and it's another good hurdle out of the way."

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