Don’t panic

Well that last week felt like the proverbial kick in the unmentionables. Was it a kick up the backside we needed though?

Time will tell.

Let’s not dress up the Sheffield Wednesday performance, despite shading the first half, hitting the post and Tom Naylor spurning a golden chance we hadn’t looked anything like our best at Hillsborough.

Even when Josh Magennnis looked like he had given us the lead with his second goal chalked off for off side in as many weeks it would have been against the run of play.

Sadly unlike in previous week’s Latics didn’t grow in to the game in the second half. A completely unwarranted penalty dispatched by Barry Banan saw Leam Richardson’s side sit further back and play with even less invention than they had in the first half.

Latics weren’t outclassed against Wednesday but it’s fair to say Darren Moore’s side did a job on us.

Add the defeat at Wednesday to the draws against Cheltenham and Oxford, plus the cup exit to Stoke and it feels like we’re in a worrying run of form at the moment.

There’s been many hot takes on the internet over the last few days that would have you believe we’re in terminal decline. It’s never a good idea to dive in to twitter post match, especially after a defeat.

There’s too much that is seen as black and white, where context and subtext are stripped out in favour of anger, frustration and emotion and who can blame people? Sometimes it’s the only opportunity to vent.

All I will say is that this side, these players, those staff have given us too much to enjoy this season, too much to be proud of for me to get too frustrated with them just yet.

The absences of Will Keane & Tom Pearce, coupled with the continued absence of Charlie Wyke and Jordan Cousins is clearly hampering us.

I would argue that Keane in particular is as key to our play as Powell was back in 17/18. Without him we struggle, but we’re not a one man team. Far from it. We just need to find a way to create without Will.

Speaking of the 17/18 season it was this week where we lost to Southend and Blackpool in consecutive league matches that left us second in the league and feeling as though we may struggle.

Back then we had two games in hand on those around us but we also had another two FA Cup matches to navigate. We all know how that season ended. Although Rotherham look uncatchable at the top a promotion spot is ours to give away, we just need to get back to winning ways as soon as possible.

Charlton and Crewe over the next week represent our best opportunity to do that. Win those two and the last week will soon be forgotten about.

Sean Livesey

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