Wigan Athletic chief reflects on floodlight fire 'farce'

Latics had already seen the League One clash at the Kassam Stadium put back from its initial Saturday slot, and then another hour to 4pm on Sunday to give the pitch extra time to thaw out, before the ludicrous scenes after the players had gone in level at 0-0.

Eventually the game did restart, and Latics actually took the lead through Callum Lang, before goals in the final 18 minutes from Sam Winnall and Elliott Moore saw Oxford record a deserved victory.

Faced with a late-night return to Wigan - and a short turnaround for Wednesday's visit of high-flying Hull - Richardson was understandably not feeling the Valentine's Day love after the game.

"It was a little bit of farce wasn't it, to be honest," he said. "You don't know what's going on at half-time.

"Look, there's no excuses, it's the same for both teams. But we're disappointed with the result, and frustrated with how it's come about.

"I thought we started both halves really well, we were comfortable, shuffling them into the areas we wanted, and offered a threat in transition.

"For 70-75 minutes of the game, I thought we were fine.

"But then the decision making after that led to the two goals, and the lads will be disappointed with that.

"We set up to concede space out wide, and defend our box when the crosses that came in.

"And I'm disappointed we weren't able to do that for the full game.

"Defensively, we absolutely should do better.

"And when we were in possession we should have kept the ball better, certainly our forward-thinking players could have offered more of a threat in certain areas."

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