It’s time to stand up and be counted

The Latics assistant manager writes every week for Chron Sport
THE COLCHESTER game was one in which we created some good scoring opportunities, but failed to take what was on offer.

We didn't play as well as we had on Saturday against Brighton — but their goalkeeper was certainly busier than ours was.

We dealt with their threat for the most part and Dean Brill only had one or two saves to make compared to Ben Williams' five or six.

The problem was, we just couldn't finish off the chances that came our way.

Colchester play with a similar tempo to us, but approach the game in a very different way. They play a style of football where they are constantly on the look-out for knockdowns and on the night, it worked for them.

The fact is that they scored and we didn't.

But in the first half, we had three great crosses skidding along the six-yard box and across their goalkeeper — yet with none of our players in sight to turn the ball in.

I think that is down to both the belief and the hunger of our strikers — do they want to get on the end of such opportunities?

It also has something to do with confidence, or a lack of it.

Too often we are looking to score the perfect goal, rather than a scrappy one where we take advantage of three deflections to bundle the ball into the net.

There are no excuses, but there is not a lot more we can do.

If we weren't creating the scoring chances then we would have a problem.

But if you look back at the past two games, we have been presented with opportunities. Now it is about finishing them off.

Some people feel it would be easy to allow ourselves to get frustrated by the run we have been on. You have to realise, though, than this is all part of football.

It also helps you to discover the character of the players and what they are really made of.

As a staff, giving up is not an option. You come into work every day as enthusiastic as you have ever been and drive players forward.

You have to reach out to players to bring them in and to get inside their heads.

It is easy to take the credit when times are good. Anybody can ride the crest of that wave.

It is in times like these when people like myself earn our money.

I believe that you have to embrace it all and meet the challenge head-on.

I couldn't say how many points we need between now and the end of the season to stay in this division.

Results are so topsy-turvy, we may need six points or we may need nine.

What we definitely do need is a positive result against Tranmere on Monday evening.

Three points would be beautiful as that would increase the points gap between the two teams on show at Boundary Park.

A positive outcome would also serve to settle down the team and give us something to build from until the end of the season.