LEAM Richardson felt his side's comeback win at Oldham Athletic was a good learning curve to prepare his side for a return to the Championship.

Wigan Athletic trailed 1-0 at half-time after Latics striker Hallam Hope scored midway through the first half.

But the League One champions recovered to score three times in the second half, with former Latics loanee Callum Lang among the scorers.

"It was a work-out. It's important at the start of pre-season that you're mindful of every day that you want to tick off come the starting line," said Wigan boss Richardson.

"You can dress pre-season games up in different ways. I never think you should get too high or too low, it's about getting the fundamental habits back into them, doing the correct things at the right time in the right areas.

"We're not going to dissect the game because it's clear to see in the first half we didn't apply ourselves to anything near the standard that I look for and the players look for, but throughout the game the standards improved a little bit.

"It's part of pre-season, you have up days, you have flat days and you have learning days, and it was all the above.

"You can't get emotionally attached to pre-season games, although some people do, it's about the strategy of making sure you're ready as a footballer, as a unit and as a team on the day we kick off against Preston."

He added: "The number and different pre-season fixtures that we've had has been good.

"It was a difficult one last year because we weren't sure what league we were going to end up finishing in and people have more or less done their pre-season.

"Thankfully we've managed to get a good number of pre-season fixtures in and we've got a good base or work into us and this week the intensity will go up, the level of opposition will go up and then we'll look at the preparations towards Preston."

Of Lang's scoring streak, with the forward grabbing his fourth in as many friendlies, Richardson said: "You know where you're going to score, you know the best areas on the pitch and Callum goes to the best and bravest areas on the pitch and he normally gets the rewards for that."