Latics take on Blackburn Rovers at Ewood Park in the First Round of the Carabao Cup and Head Coach Laurent Banide give his thoughts ahead of the game.
Banide says he's seen a reaction from his side in training following the defeat against Crewe Alexandra at the weekend, but he wants them to show it in the matches.
“Every time in training we see a reaction but the problem is not the training, the problem is the game." He said.
“It's good when it happens in training, players dribbling and scoring, but we must be careful about the game.
"We need to work on a lot on tactics in training and we have to try and push the players to find a bit of quality.”
Banide believes it’s too easy for side’s to play against Latics at the moment and he has identified areas that need improvement.
“It’s a question of tactics, I think we have a lot of bad positioning and we are in a difficult situation, so it’s too easy to play against us at the moment." He commented.
“We must work with the positioning of each player because we saw a lot of bad positioning and it’s easy to play against us at the moment and the players must understand that we’re too open across the pitch.
“We must have better quality with the ball and we lose the ball too often, we don’t have time to wait, we must work and we must improve on a lot of things.”
David Wheater missed the game against Crewe Alexandra through injury and Banide explained the situation with the defender.
“He was okay to play against Forest Green because he’s been training a lot with Bolton Wanderers but he’s suffered an injury and we don’t want to take a risk because sometimes a muscle injury can take time.
“It’s a choice but we can’t play with a player if he has a big injury, we must wait one or two weeks.
"I don’t know but David must be 100% to play, we need him to play but I can’t take a risk because we need to think about the future.”
The Frenchman wants to see more spirit and character from his side against Blackburn Rovers.
“Every time we go into a game we want a result because it’s the way that we work, we must play for a result and try to have better positioning, better spirit and better quality.
“We can improve by the game, training is not important but what is important is that we must see in the game what we work on in the training ground at the moment we don’t see enough.
“In training, everybody works well and in the game, it isn’t the same, we expect more quality.”
This will be the second cup competition that Latics will have featured in this as season, as well as the league, and Banide hasn’t experienced this amount of games in such a short space of time.
“It’s the first time I’ve experienced that before and we don’t have the time to think because we have too many games.
“It’s another problem because we need to have a lot of players to play in all the competitions but at the minute I’m working with my team to try and find the solution for the future to play better.”
Banide made several changes in the last cup competition, but he says things may be different this time around against Blackburn.
However, he didn't rule out making one or two changes as Latics look to cause the shock tonight.
“We must go for maybe one or two changes because of tiredness and injury but we can’t change it all as we need to stay with this group now and work with this group.
“We don’t need to change a lot of players, but we will give some players a chance to show what they can do.
"It’s important the confidence between the players, we need to play with the best players we have and it’s an opportunity for players coming off the bench.”
Banide wants a reaction from his side and he expects his players to fight for the badge.
“We try to do our best every time and we need to improve because at the moment it’s not enough.
“It’s a big job and we must achieve it with spirit and it’s important to have a reaction.
"It’s important to try because it’s football, sometimes you win, lose or draw but you try and you must show more if you want to win.
"With the ball, we must have more quality and more spirit.”
The Head Coach believes that a win would massively boost the confidence of his side but demands that his team play in the right way.
“We need to have a result for our confidence but if we win 1-0 and they hit the post ten times and have 20 shots you don’t have insurance.
“You need to have insurance when you play on your position, when you have the ball and when you don’t have the ball.
"You take insurance when you play to your potential, that is important.
“If you’re strong in defence, show good work with the ball, good movement with the ball and you create something maybe you can win the game but the way you play is important to me.”