Paul Dickov is looking for Latics to build on their encouraging start to the season as they embark upon a run of three successive home matches in the next week.

High-flying Latics host West Country sides Yeovil and Bristol Rovers in npower League One while also playing hosts to Shrewsbury in the Johnstone's Paint Trophy.

"Home form is important for lots of reasons. If you win your home games, you have half a chance to do well," explained Dickov.

Yeovil may be in the bottom half of the table and without a win since the opening day, but the Latics manager won't be treating the Glovers lightly.

Dickov says he has great admiration for the job Terry Skiverton is doing on a shoestring at Huish Park.

He explained: "Terry is a young manager who has done fantastically well and Yeovil will be a hard team for us to beat.

"They have managed to stay in the division when usually amongst the favourites to go down and I have every respect for the job he has done.

"They hang in there every year. You have to take your hat off to what they have achieved."

Dickov is trying to instill those same battling qualities in his own team which remains unbeaten after the opening three league matches of the campaign.

He says it is important they don't become complacent, get carried away by their early success and keep feet on the ground.

Dickov only has to remind his players in their last meeting at end of the season, Latics lost 3-0 at Yeovil who they have also failed to beat in the four matches of the last two seasons.

He said: "We have to make sure we don't let the high expectations get the better of us.

"The players are probably sick of hearing it but, if we are not at it from the first minute, we are not as good as team as we think we are.

"If we are at it, as we have done by doing all the horrible things right which allows us to play football, we will cause teams trouble as we have shown as we have produced four good performances and got three very good results, something we want to keep going."

Dickov added there is still a lot of work to do and scope for improvement citing Oumare Tounkara is a prime example.

He believes the young striker, signed on a season-long loan from Sunderland, will become a big player for Latics.

Dickov continued: "Big Oumare came into the side at Tranmere, worked hard, but looked rusty.

"We said then he would become a big player for us and the more minutes he gets on the pitch, the better player he will become.

"We saw that at Charlton, but you have to remember he is a young kid. He is big, quick and a handful as we saw when he caused the Charlton centre backs all sorts of troubles.

"The more we see of him and the more we work with him in training, the better he will become as will also be the case with everybody else."