Caldwell stresses importance of upcoming DW fixtures

Gary Caldwell reckons that the new additions to Wigan Athletic's squad and the spirit within the team will make sure the club have a successful end to the season.

Speaking after Latics' 1-1 draw with Sunderland on Saturday the centre-half explained how the team have the right mentality to deal with the challenges in the league between now and the end of the season:

"Any point away from home in the Premier League is a good point, and we now have three home matches in a row that we really have to focus on," said Caldwell.

"We need to be picking up as many wins as we can at home because it's going to be very tight between now and the end of the season.

"The two new lads can only help the competition for places up front, and that can only be good for us in the coming weeks. And I'm sure they'll come to the fore.

"We're all fighting for each other and fighting to stay in this league - and I'm sure we'll succeed in doing that.

"Everyone is together, we have a great team spirit here from the manager down to the players, and I think that was obvious in the way we performed on Saturday."

Cadlwell was speaking after the Sunderland game on Saturday and although he was disappointed not to come away with all three points he pointed out that a point away from home is something to savour:

"To take the lead and dominate the game like we did, and have chances to go 2-0 up in the second half, we are disappointed not to have won the game.

"Sunderland threw everything at us in the second half and got a good goal back, and in the end we were happy to settle for a point.

"We defended very well, but you have to when you come to places like this. They put the ball in the box and make you defend, and we've seen what happens when they do that.

"I just think if we could have gone on and got that second goal it would have killed the game off, and we just couldn't manage to do that.

"We'd had two great chances to score a second early in the second half before they equalised and our backs were up against the wall.

"But we came on strong again at the end and on another day could have ended up nicking a winner."