Caretaker manager Pete Wild was far from pleased after the Latics lost 2-1 at Macclesfield Town on Saturday. After taking a first minute lead through a penalty by new signing Urko Vera they fell to bits and put in a shocking performance, described by some Latics' fans as being the worst ever! It was the teams first defeat under the caretaker manager.
Wild said, “It was uncharacteristic of us, but we were poor all over the park. Too many people didn't turn up, too many people thought they could come here and just roll them over. We made a great start with the early goal, but we simply weren't good enough all over the park.”
“I'm not really sure why it was so poor because I can't play for the game for them. We were sloppy, players not playing to their strengths, players thinking they're things that they're not. Maybe because we've done well in the past few weeks people are getting carried away with themselves, but that's slapped back down to earth today.”
“30 seconds in we're one-nil up from a move we've worked on which was great, but from then on we were poor let's not beat around the bush. We didn't get close enough to people, we didn't win second balls, we didn't put a tackle in that meant anything and we just got bullied. It's definitely a wake-up call and it shows we've got a lot of work to do. It shows if you don't work hard enough and you get out-muscled you get what you deserve which was what we got today.”
“It was tough for Urko [Vera] because his last game was December 15th. Ideally, I only wanted to play him for 60 minutes and ease him back in but needs must. He had to feed off scraps all day and probably didn't get the service he desired, but that's League Two football and he'll have to come accustomed to that quickly. It was burst with a bang today, but that's football and life. I take it personally because I'll walk over there at the end and thanking the fans for the support and the players should apologise to them as well. I would personally like to apologise because it’s me in charge and that today wasn’t good enough for them.”