Shaun Maloney delivers rare Kolo Toure praise despite dire Wigan Athletic spell | OneFootball

Former Arsenal and Liverpool defender Kolo Toure was appointed Wigan Athletic manager in November 2022, following the club's somewhat controversial decision to sack former boss Leam Richardson.

Richardson steered the Latics away from relegation to League Two as he guided the club to a 20th-place finish at the end of the 2020/21 League One campaign, despite the fact that they were in administration for the vast majority of the campaign, and were reliant on academy players and free signings.

The current Rotherham United manager then won the third tier title with the 'Tics during the 2021/22 season in which the Greater Manchester outfit won an impressive total of 92 points.

Initially, the Latics made a strong start to life in the Championship with Richardson and went on a four-game unbeaten run at the beginning of the 2022/23 season, including an improbable 1-0 victory at Birmingham City on 20th August 2022.

Joe Bennett was sent off for Richardson's men after just 10 minutes, but Nathan Broadhead scored the winner in the 82nd minute, which demonstrated the fighting spirit the manager had instilled in his squad.

However, matters would soon take a turn for the worse for the DW Stadium outfit, as six losses and seven consecutive games without a win across October and early November cost Richardson his job, and resulted in the arrival of Toure.

Toure's dismal spell at Latics

When appointing Toure, the Latics board were always taking a risk, as this was the former Ivory Coast international's first job as a first team manager.

However, no one at the club could have anticipated just how poorly Toure would perform, as his dismal spell in the dugout was a major factor as to why the 'Tics finished the 2022/23 season in the Championship relegation zone.

The former Premier League star managed just nine games for the club, but that was enough time for the board to feel that they had seen enough of him.

In those nine games, Toure failed to guide the Latics to a single victory, losing six and drawing three in both the Championship and the FA Cup.

Most painfully for the DW Stadium faithful, this woeful run of form included three consecutive 4-1 defeats at the hands of Middlesbrough, Sunderland and Hull City during the festive period.

Remarkably, a third of all the games Toure managed came against Luton Town, as his side drew 1-1 with the Hatters in an FA Cup third round tie at Kenilworth Road.

Under the Ivorian's stewardship, the Latics would go on to lose two games in the space of four days to the Hatters, who won the third round replay at the DW on 17th January 2023, before returning with a 2-0 league win on the following Saturday.

But for all of Toure's shortcomings, he did give Charlie Hughes, who is one of the Latics' most sought-after assets, his first team debut for the club.

Following the 20-year-old's nomination for the League One young player of the year award, Maloney praised his predecessor for introducing the central defender to first team football.

The Latics boss told Wigan Today: "In fairness to Kolo (Toure), he played him, they got beat, he played him, they got beat, but he kept faith.

"And when you compare the player back then to the player we see now, he's come on leaps and bounds - with so much more to come."

Hughes is still a young player, but he has already experienced a wide variety of highs and lows with the Latics, from captaining the side in January's FA Cup tie with Manchester United to the relegation of the 2022/23 season, in which the defender and his colleagues were paid late on several occasions, leading to points deductions.

He has taken everything in his stride and has shone as one of League One's best central defenders this campaign, which has seen him included in England's Men's Euro Elite Squad, formerly known as the under-20s throughout the campaign.

Hughes looks like a player with a big future and has been linked with both Championship promotion-chasers Ipswich Town and Premier League stalwarts West Ham United.