Latics take on Walsall tonight at Boundary Park and Head Coach Dino Maamria gave his thoughts ahead of the game.
The Head Coach was disappointed with his sides’ performance against Macclesfield Town at the weekend, but hopes that his players will learn from the defeat.
"It kills me after games when we lose, it absolutely kills me. I'm still trying to deal with the loss on Saturday and on Saturday night I felt sorry for my wife and kids.
“What I do is I go home and the first thing I do is put the game on and watch it and digest it and the first thing I look at is myself if I should have done things differently and brake the game down in the technical details.
“And on Sunday, you look at it and analyse and you've got to come up with a way forward on Monday with a fresh group of players. That's what I do, I think if you look back at the Macclesfield game, first-half we didn't start how we should start on the front foot and gave our fans, who turned up in numbers, something to cheer about.” He commented.
“Our fans aren't stupid they know what they're looking, they want a team that attacks with desire, press teams, dominant the ball and opposition and that first tackle and header to set the tempo and that's what all the fans are looking for and we never gave them that and that's really disappointing.
“Second-half we tried but Macclesfield grew in confidence, same with any team if you go away from home and give them that much time and space on the ball. If you don't get stuck into them then their confidence will grow and they start playing with the confidence and belief that they can win the game.
“Although, their goal came at a really bad time and obviously we spoke about the free-kick we gave away and it was a fantastic free-kick.
“When you look back at it can the goalkeeper do more or can the wall do more and I can't take it away from McCourt's quality free-kick but McCourt has played a big part in the result as well because we had a blatant penalty in the last kick of the game, doing a goal-line clearance with his arm and that's the type of luck that we don't get sometimes. I think that the referee was good on Saturday he just missed it because he's in the wrong position.
“Probably, a draw would have been a fair result on Saturday but hopefully we learn from it and if we learn anything from it, we've got to make sure we start on the front foot against Walsall."
Maamria believes that Walsall have a good squad and they need time to start picking up more wins.
"Walsall have just been relegated from League One and have got a new manager and had a lot of change in players as well.
“So, it's no coincidence that they have changed management and that change is never easy and I think that's were Walsall struggle with the consistency and try to pick the right team because they've got a new squad together and that's what happens when you're right at the bottom and made that many changes. You're always going to struggle and you need a little bit of time.
“I think that's where Walsall are, having said that they've got a very good squad on paper.” He added.
“I watched their last few games and they've got players that are very good at this level. They are similar to us and trying to find that rhythm to go forward, what we've got to make sure is they don't start doing that against us and we've got to make sure we learn from Saturday's game and we've got to go and try to score and win the first-half and then build on that.
“That's what we did well against Morecambe. I think that if we want to win games especially at home, we've got to make sure that we're starting games better."
Latics will be without numerous players against Walsall through injury and suspension and a few academy products are expected to make the bench.
"We've actually got 14 first-team players tonight so we're looking to include two young academy boys that will be on the bench with us and I will probably bring two more from the academy and put them on the bench as well.
“We're missing some key players, I think six including Branger-Engone, Fage, Mills also with Maouche, Sylla and Egert suspended. But we are where we are and hopefully some the Youth Team lads will play a part. I think it's an opportunity for them as well to step up to the First Team that's what we're looking to do and it's a pathway and it's something that I'm looking to do in the future.
“We saw Lewis McKinney make his debut on Saturday and hopefully we will see one or two of them making their debut against Walsall.
“We've got to sort out our own house and we've got to make sure that we pick a team that's going to attack and going to dominate from the first minute."
Zeus de la Paz suffered a nasty injury against Macclesfield at the weekend but was able to play on and Maamria gave an update on his situation.
"Zeus is okay and should be fine. I thought that he did well on Saturday overall, it was a difficult decision for me to leave Woods out but Zeus stepped up and he was fantastic on Saturday, so hopefully that will continue."