Wigan Athletic boss reacts to Coventry City setback

The Latics boss felt his side edged the opening 45 minutes at the Coventry Building Society Stadium, only to again come up short in front of goal.

Coventry then upped the ante in the second half, although it took an absolute fluke to open the scoring 13 minutes from time.

A long-range strike from Gusatvo Hamer took a massive deflection on its way past Jamie Jones.

And Latics were put out of their misery deep into stoppage-time when the impressive Viktor Gyokeres ran half the length of the field to slot home number two.

"It's another disappointing result for us," recognised Richardson.

"I thought the first half was very even, neither goalkeeper had much to do, in fact we possibly shaded it as the away team.

"But in those moments, we've got to be a little bit better, certainly offensively, and make our moments count.

"Because you know there's also going to be certain spells for the opposition, and I thought they started the second half very rightly.

"The momentum swung their way and our distances became a little bit too open.

"But I thought we saw it through so to speak, we started to get up the pitch, only to suffer the sucker punch of the deflected goal, which was disappointing.

"The second goal, we're chasing the game, so I'm not really looking at that."

Latics have picked up only four points from their last 10 matches, and face a massive six-pointer against fourth-bottom Blackpool before the month-long break for the World Cup.

"You can't feel sorry for yourself, and won't feel sorry for ourselves," added Richardson.

"We knew our challenge last summer, coming into this league, with the group that we had, we knew it would be challenging.

"We've accepted the challenge, and you can never knock their effort, to run, to work, to defend.

"Of course we could be better in some moments, we've got to look for that bit of quality.

"But you look at Coventry, they've been going well for some years now, building and recruiting really well.

"In my opinion, they will be right up there."

Latics hit the bar inside 15 minutes through Will Keane, although the flag was up for offside, before James McClean fired just wide.

As half-time approached, the visitors had a massive let-off when Kasey Palmer was played through on goal, while having his shirt clearly being pulled by Curtis Tilt.

The City attacker stayed on his feet and shot wide, with the referee giving a goal-kick rather than the penalty the home side were expecting.

Latics were almost gifted a goal by one of the home defenders, who played a blind backpass without looking where his goalkeeper, Ben Wilson, was.

Wilson had to race back and clear off the line.

But the home side's pressure eventually told 13 minutes from time through Hamer.

Thelo Aasgaard and Gwion Edwards joined fellow subs Josh Magennis and Nathan Broadhead as Latics tried to shake it up a bit.

But the home side always looked the more likely scorers and, after Tyler Walker blasted inches wide, Gyokeres sealed the points at the death.