Visitors will be no pushovers

Latics’ assistant manager writes every week for Chron Sport
IT was very disappointing to lose 2-1 at home to Scunthorpe, not least because we played some of the best football I have seen since arriving at this club in 2010.

Our attacking play was excellent but the most important part — sticking the ball in the back of the net — was lacking, apart from a Filipe Morais strike.

It was encouraging to see us create so many chances but at any level of football, you have to take your opportunities or you pay the price, and that is exactly what happened at Boundary Park.

To compound our misery, Keanu Marsh-Brown was shown a straight red card for a two-footed tackle.

I have not watched a replay of the incident but my initial reaction was that even though I am sure he was going for the ball, it is not permitted to go in with two feet and studs up.

I think there was a little bit of frustration on Keanu’s part which led to the incident.

His suspension is a huge blow. He was showing a lot of promise on the night, threatening Scunthorpe with his attacking approach and he could have got his name on the scoresheet twice.

The timing of his ban could not be worse, because we are thin on the ground at the moment, with a number of key first-team players carrying injuries.

We are also keeping tabs on Tom Adeyemi’s situation. Tomorrow’s home clash with Yeovil is supposed to be Tom’s last for Athletic before returning to parent club Norwich City.

However, we are keen to keep him as he has been excellent during his loan spell here and has stepped up in the absence of injured pair Dean Furman and James Wesolowski.

Whether we are able to extend his deal is unclear, but we will see what we can do.

As for Yeovil, Gary Johnson is the latest in a string of managers who have ignored the mantra ‘never go back’ by returning to his former club.

He has done a good job and they look a better prospect than they did at the start of the season.

I have been to watch Yeovil. They don’t give their opponents much time to settle, they are quite mobile and work hard, so we know it is going to be a tough game.