Youngsters must learn quickly

PAUL DICKOV . . . can make an important contribution when back to full fitness.

Latics’ assistant manager writes every Friday in Chron Sport
I TAKE it personally when we concede bad goals and that was certainly the case in the 5-2 defeat at Peterborough.

We did not defend set pieces well and obviously we paid the price by throwing away our two-goal lead.

When it came to free-kicks, throw-ins and even crosses, we were not good enough, which is disappointing.

If you look at the Peterborough goals, they did not cut us open for any of them – the goals came courtesy of our own mistakes.

I think the problem was that when we came under pressure we made the wrong decisions.

Myself and Paul Dickov were not happy with that, and we let the players know.

The sad thing is, we were always in the game and creating chances. The front two, Oumare Tounkara and Warren Feeney, worked their socks off.

Since the defeat, the players have been very good in training.

It is a young team, but we have explained to them that you have to learn quickly in this division.

They need to realise that we don’t expect them to play passing football for 90 minutes, especially at the back and particularly away from home when sometimes it is better to just clear your lines.

On the road we will come under pressure and the players have to do the simple things on occasions.

We are looking for a reaction from the players when Bournemouth come to Boundary Park tomorrow . . . and we expect a strong reaction.

The lads have been told we want them to return to winning ways.

We can do that if we take the positives from the Peterborough game – like the fact we were 2-0 up away from home against a good team – but now we have started scoring again, it is important to ‘lock the back door’ and not give goals away.

The return of Paul (Dickov) to the squad recently gave everyone a boost.

He received a positive reaction from the players and the fans, which is not surprising because his style of play has always been popular among supporters.

The players like having him on the pitch, it enthuses everyone.

We might need him out there in the coming weeks, especially if Warren Feeney is called up again by Northern Ireland.

It is down to me to keep an eye on Paul’s physical condition and decide whether he should be involved on match day.

At the moment he is struggling with a couple of niggles, mainly aches and pains and a problem in his lower back.

It is not a case of giving him more match time, it is more about doing the right sort of recovery work.

Hopefully, Paul will stay fit because he can be an important part of the squad this season.