MICHAEL Ricketts believes that, although the result didn't go The Saddlers' way on Tuesday evening, we can take plenty of heart out of our performance at Boundary Park.

Jimmy Mullen's men battled back from conceding an unfortunate early goal to take a 2-1 lead against The Latics thanks to a header from Ricketts and an Alex Nicholls strike.

However, a Lee Hughes brace, which included a last-minute winner, condemned The Saddlers to an undeserved 3-2 defeat.

"We didn't deserve to lose," he said. "That's the best we've played in a number of weeks. We worked hard, passed the ball and competed against a decent side.

"We deserved at least a point but we can take heart from the performance. Obviously we're a little down at the moment but we'll take stock and start looking ahead to Saturday.

"We're in a bit of a slump at the moment but we are a good side. When we pass the ball and are on form we are a good side. It was a good performance but we didn't get the result and that's the bottom line.

"However, we can take a lot of positives out of that performance as we look towards the visit of Swindon Town."

Saturday's game sees us play host to Swindon Town after the original match was postponed due to snow at the end of October.