Young guns show great promise

Latics’ assistant manager writes every Friday for Chron Sport
CHRIS Taylor produced two superb finishes to help us defeat Swindon Town last week.

You could tell from an early stage of the game that he had the beating of the full-back he was up against at the County Ground.

The first goal he scored was a 25-yard piledriver and his second he tucked away sweetly into the far corner.

It illustrated what Chris is all about. He had the bit between his teeth for us on Saturday and deserved the success he got.

Looking at his second goal, he initially had a shot which was blocked and then won the ball back again before bending it round the 'keeper.

It was a pleasing show of determination and he got his reward for it.

Those two goals aside, we looked a robust side during the game.

Swindon had a lot of the play and like to stroke the ball around, but we made better use of it when we got it back and were solid defensively when we didn't.

It was encouraging. We can't get away from the fact that they had already been relegated and were probably feeling a bit down, but there are plenty of positives to take from the game from our viewpoint.

We had three 18-year-olds and two 19-year-olds in the starting line-up. And every one of them put in a shift and contributed to the game.

It is always going to be difficult playing away from home in your first senior match, but I felt young winger Ryan Burns started the game well for us.

Positionally, he was a little bit naive at times and he ran out of steam in the second half which is why we brought him off.

But he will get plenty of confidence from the game. He got in behind one of their centre-backs after taking him on one-on-one during the first half and put a lovely ball into the box.

As per usual, there was nobody in the box to put it away. But it was a great bit of skill and a great cross.