Wigan were starting the post-Ryan Lowe era after a 6-1 thrashing at Peterborough on Saturday led to his sacking, and edged the first half without translating that onto the scoreboard.

And the Royals made them pay within four minutes of the restart when a totally unmarked Jeriel Dorsett headed home from close range.

On-loan Huddersfield striker Joe Taylor nodded Wigan level with 23 minutes remaining from Fraser Murray’s left-wing cross, 10 minutes after coming on as a substitute.

But Reading regained the lead four minutes from time when Paudie O’Connor headed home a right-wing free-kick from six yards.

“It was a big three points for us,” said Richardson, who spent five years at Wigan between 2017 and 2022 as Paul Cook’s assistant and then as manager.

“It’s never easy coming away from home on a Tuesday night, in this kind of weather, against a side that has lost their manager in the week after a big loss at the weekend.

“We didn’t know how they were going to react to that, what team they were going to pick, and we had to manage the game while it was going on.

“Wigan played two or three different shapes during the game to what they’ve been doing, and I thought our lads adapted very well to that.

“It was always going to be a dangerous game for us but we thought that if we could manage the first 20 minutes, we could come away with a positive result, and I thought we did that.

“We had to be patient, we knew we couldn’t risk the ball, and I thought at times we played some really good football, we played through them at times.

“We knew we were playing against a good team in Wigan, with some good players on the pitch… in my opinion they are in a false position. But everyone put a shift in and we had that little bit of quality for the goals.”

Wigan interim chief Graham Barrow felt there was plenty his side could take in terms of positives.

“I thought it was a much-improved performance,” he said. “While we desperately wanted the result, I think the performance by the players was so much better as a group. That’s the most positive thing behind it.

“But getting down to the nitty-gritty, and looking closely at the game, both of Reading’s goals were stoppable. We need to put that right to give ourselves a real chance of winning games.

“But I thought on the whole the response from the players was really good, considering we only really had Monday to work on it.

“Looking further ahead, if we can play to those levels, I’m sure we can get the wins on the board that we’ll need.

“We showed the players lots of clips of positive stuff, in games where we’ve done well – which there has been, despite the last few weeks.

“I said to them at half-time, when we were going forward, we were a little bit hesitant. And I thought in the second half we looked a lot more positive.

“Obviously we have to find some goals, and we just need to make sure we get the service into Joe Taylor because we know he can score goals.”