Financial gulf won’t stop us having a go

Latics’ assistant manager writes every week for Chron Sport
SHEFFIELD United are an awful long way off where we are in terms of their multi-million pounds budget, but as a management team that makes little difference to our approach.

In short, we go out to win every single game. We will never adopt the mindset of letting one slip by. It is not in our nature.

In all of the 16 fixtures between now and the end of the season there is plenty to play for.

Not least — as was the case last year — the issue of contract offers.

Players still need to prove themselves worthy of deals. The jury is still out on one or two, so they have got to start putting in performances, particularly against the bigger teams, if they want to receive offers.

When you have a budget like Sheffield United's, the expectation is naturally that the club will be challenging for a place in the top two or three in the division.

If you look all the way through the leagues, those teams with the biggest budgets are nearly always up near the top at the end of the season. It is no coincidence.

It is definitely a case of us having nothing to lose by going there. Though they lost the derby to Sheffield Wednesday, they are at home and so the pressure is on their shoulders more than ours.

We are looking for a positive reaction from the disappointment of Tuesday night against Colchester and if we get that, we should give a good account.

Looking back to the game at Boundary Park, it was disappointing to only draw after conceding a goal eight minutes from the end of normal time.

It was down to a bit of inexperience that we gave them the chance to tee up a free-kick and after that, people didn't do the jobs assigned to them. We switched off and it cost us.

You can probably apportion part of the reason for that to mental tiredness.

When you are fatigued, you have to make the game simpler rather than complicating things.

We made it tough for ourselves by playing right into Colchester's hands.

Because of the experience brought together by their manager John Ward, they knew exactly what to do when certain players picked up possession, and it contributed to our downfall.