Wigan Athletic guest column - James Vaughan

First and foremost the team has really needed a win, we managed to get that and we’re all delighted.

On a personal note it was nice to be able to go home and tell my little boy I’d scored...because he’s been on at me in recent weeks for not doing!

I’ll enjoy that for the rest of the week for sure.

I’m always confident taking penalties, that’s been the case throughout my career.

You score some, you miss some, but as long as you’re putting your hand up to take one, that’s the main thing.

It was great to see it go in, and I just gave it everything.

If the goalkeepers saves it, you hold your hands up and say: ‘Fair play’.

But luckily for me it went in, and more importantly it helped us on the way to a much-needed win.

It could have been even more to be honest, I thought we got our tactics spot on.

The gaffer worked out what we had to do and the lads executed it perfectly.

That makes it four points from the last two games and that’s more like what we’re capable of.

We lost four on the bounce prior to that, which has been well documented, but I really don’t think we deserved to lose them all.

It’s easy to get frustrated when you’re on a run like that, but the gaffer kept us believing in what we’re doing and we’ve come through it.

Having got back into the starting side I’m obviously hoping to have done enough to stay in there.

No-one likes sitting on the bench at the end of the day, and I’m here to do as much as I can for the team and help us win games.

The decision is now up to the gaffer and we’ll all respect what he decides and be ready when called upon to do a job for the team.

A win on Saturday at Bolton could take us back into the top half, and to be fair we’ve only ever been looking up, rather than down.

We stayed strong despite a few things going against us, and I think that shows the spirit and the character we’ve got here in the dressing room.

James Vaughan was speaking to Paul Kendrick