Wigan Athletic boss encouraged by progress in AFC Fylde win amid demanding pre-season fitness schedule

Wigan Athletic boss Gary Caldwell believes his side are making encouraging progress during pre-season after seeing Latics beat AFC Fylde 3-0 at Mill Farm on Saturday.

Chris Sze scored twice from the penalty spot before Fraser Murray added a third as Wigan secured their first pre-season victory, just a week after opening preparations with a 3-1 home defeat to Port Vale.

Caldwell felt there were clear signs of improvement despite his players still carrying heavy training loads.

“Yeah, and still fatigued,” he said. “The boys have worked incredibly hard this week.

“The runs they did on Thursday, I’m glad I wasn’t doing them, that’s all I can say about them! But they worked hard on Thursday and Friday, whereas we normally wouldn’t work as hard as that in preparation for a game on a Saturday, so they were still very fatigued coming into the game.

“But there were elements of the sharpness that we’d worked on this week and we’ll work on in the coming weeks to be ready for Barnsley, so good progressions made all around.”

Latics not only scored three goals but also created a number of other attacking opportunities, something Caldwell believes came from their aggressive pressing.

“Yeah, and loads of chances created on the back of winning the ball high up the pitch and a really aggressive press, pressing in a different shape than we’ve pressed before,” he said.

“The one part of the game where I think we could’ve been better, we could’ve kept the ball better at times, rather than always trying to score a goal.

“Sometimes you need to play away from pressure and keep the ball and have periods of possession that then, when you do lose it, you have that energy.

“I thought we dipped a little bit after 25/30 minutes in energy because we were chasing the ball so much, and we needed to take possession in that moment, but as a new group, that’s something we can learn from, we can show the players, and we can be better at that next week.”

While several individuals impressed during the victory at Mill Farm, Caldwell preferred to praise the collective effort.

“I thought the team stood out,” he added. “I thought the way we wanted to press was different, we’ve only worked on it for two or three days, and to do that, you need everyone to be connected and everyone together, and I thought we did that very well at times.

“There are still areas of that I think we can improve, but as always, the team is the most important thing.”