Wigan Athletic boss upbeat despite defeat at Middlesbrough

After a promising draw at Millwall on opening day, Toure has tasted defeat against Sheffield United and now Middlesbrough to leave Latics second bottom of the Championship.

Academy product Charlie Hughes performed well on his first league start at centre-half, but there were few other positives on a difficult afternoon at the Riverside.

"It was a difficult afternoon for us," acknowledged Toure. "I feel like we started well, we put them under pressure and created chances we might have made more of.

"We should have been more aggressive with our chances, then our concentration let us down for the first goal.

"That put us under pressure, but to our credit we kept going, we kept pressing and created chances that we could have done better with.

"But offensively and defensively, at times, I felt we were too passive, with some of the actions, which we absolutely need to correct.

"We tried to be as positive as we could, and attack as much as we could.

"Obviously when you try to do that, you are going to leave space at the back for your opponents, which they took advantage of well.

"We continued to create chances, which we could have scored from, but we were unable to take advantage of them."

At the halfway stage of the campaign, Latics are mired in the relegation zone - but Toure doesn't feel the situation is irredeemable.

"The players are good, honest people, and they are giving me their best," he added.

"They are giving me everything on the training ground and on a matchday, and I can't ask for more than that.

"In three days' time we are playing against another team (Sunderland), who will provide us with a different set of challenges.

"We will prepare for that as well as we can, and we'll be ready for that.

"This is a fantastic challenge for me...if you don't challenge yourself, you'll never know what you're capable of.

"I'm a guy who likes to challenge myself, and I'm very proud and very happy to do that.

"This is a great opportunity for me, but I'm up for it...I have no regrets, never."

Latics created the opening chance, with Nathan Broadhead's shot forcing a good save from Zach Steffen, and the rebound from Thelo Aasgaard was diverted behind for a corner.

But Boro took the lead on 27 minutes, when Marcus Forss drilled home from close range.

At the other end, Callum Lang had a shot deflected over the top, before James McClean sent over a corner, and Charlie Hughes - making his first league start - headed over.

Boro doubled their advantage four minutes after the restart, when Chuba Akpom smashed home from close range.

It was so close to 3-0 Boro when Forss' shot took a massive deflection off Hughes, and looped just wide of the far post.

But goal number three arrived on the hour mark through Akpom again, and again it was far too easy.

Latics gave themselves hope two minutes later when Max Power's cross was volleyed home by Aasgaard.

But Akpom completed his hat-trick in the closing stages to put Latics out of their misery.