Visitors in need of pick me up
Coventry City will arrive at Boundary Park tomorrow in desperate need of a pick-me-up.
Relegated from the Championship in May, the Sky Blues find themselves in the relegation places in npower League One.
Latics' manager Paul Dickov believes Coventry, with Mark Robins appointed their new manager last week, will soon start to climb the table.
He said: "It is a surprise to see Coventry near the bottom of League One as they have a lot of quality in their team.
"I know what it is like to be at a big club when it is relegated and confidence takes a massive blow when you are not winning games."
Dickov is aware of the threat from striker David McGoldrick who is on loan from Nottingham Forest and who was cup tied against Arsenal in midweek.
Latics' manager also points to players like Gary McSheffrey, Kevin Kilbane, John Fleck, Callum Ball and Stephen Elliott who provide a lot of attacking options for the Sky Blues.
Dickov believes Coventry could have done without their midweek cup tie as Robins would probably have preferred a full week to work with his team on the training ground.
Latics, too, are in need of a pick me up as they have won only once in their first seven league matches.
Dickov believes there has been evidence in the last three games against Notts County, Scunthorpe and Brentford that better times are around the corner, even though those matches yielded only two points.
He said: "There have been encouraging signs, especially in the second half of those games.
"The fact that Brentford's goalkeeper was man of the match last Saturday told the story.
"We took the game to them in the second half and they were hanging on at the end.
"We are all disappointed by our start to the season, but the boys are not deflated and we all feel we are not far away from getting things right."
This will be Latics' first game against Coventry for almost 19 years.
Incredibly when the two teams last met in 1993/94, both clubs graced the Premier League.