Latics entertain Swindon Town at Boundary Park tomorrow and, Head Coach, Keith Curle previewed the fixture.
After picking up a point on the road last time out, Curle believes that it has given his side a platform to build on going forwards.
“I’ve taken a lot of positives from last weekend. First of all, another clean sheet is a starting point for success which is always a good place to begin.
“On the flip side of that, we need to score more goals and create more opportunities, but in saying that if the officials had a better view of things, they might have realised that we scored a perfectly good goal as well. And, we had a couple of set pieces where we went very close to breaking the deadlock.
“So, like I said, there were plenty of positives as we were an attacking threat, but I think that we can add more quality in the final third and we still need to get more numbers into the final third as well. But we have a starting point with the clean sheet, so that’s five in the last seven league matches.”
The Head Coach is determined to get his team scoring goals on a more consistent basis and he possesses belief in the fact that his squad to turn their fortunes around.
“I’m not a big believer in luck because I think that it's a case of more opportunities that need to be created if we’re going to score more goals.
“We need more numbers to get in the box and cause the opposition problems in the final third.” He commented.
“I know that we’ve got goals in the team combined with players that can deliver quality balls into good areas.
“We just need a game to arrive where that ability and that quality comes to the surface and the best time to do is always at home.”
In midweek, the youth team produced a memorable win in the FA Youth Cup against Carlisle United and Curle admits that he was impressed with the youngsters.
“There were a number of individual performances from their game on Tuesday evening that went with notice.
“A couple have been training with us and it's about creating that pathway and showing the players from the youth team that every game and every day that they're in training it’s about how they conduct themselves in and around members of staff in the building when they're representing the football club, it gets noted.” He added.
“When they've earned the right to come up and train with us then that's their first opportunity for them to get on that pathway. Then, it’s a case of go and impress, go and show us why you've been asked to come up training with us.
“It’s all down to the relationship that I've got with Conor (Marlin) and Selim (Benachour), whereby they know what I'm looking for in players. And, when they send the players up that are at that stage where they're ready for the opportunity. But, getting an opportunity is one thing taking it is the next.”
The gaffer wants to make our home turf a fortress and states that the players’ mindset is always to come away with the three points.
“I want to win home and away. Our home form isn't where it needs to be, we need to improve.
“But psychologically, the win against Stevenage came at a good time, but all wins come at a good time.
“Do we prepare differently for away games? No. The players’ mentality is that we want to win every game that we go into and if we don't win, we want to at minimum come away with a draw.”
Curle has an in-depth knowledge of the visitors and reiterated that his players must stick to their game plan.
“They've got some good players and they've got a style of play in which is to play football on along the floor.
“They got upset last week by Bradford City, their first goal came from a long throw and their second goal was a piece of good finishing. So, it just shows that everybody in this division has got weaknesses.” He said.
“Our game plan tomorrow is to make sure that we understand their strengths and how they want to play the game.
“We've got to nullify that and then we’ve got to be a threat going forwards, creating goals, getting numbers into the box and getting quality deliveries in the box and when you get the opportunity you’ve got to be ruthless.”