Latics boss David Dunn admits there are no excuses to his side's poor home form and in particular against Barnsley. He said, “Everyone could see we didn't really turn up in the first half. We gave ourselves a hell of a lot to do with that first-half performance because we gave the ball away and were second to everything. We should have had a penalty, but I'm certainly not going to make excuses because it wasn't good enough. We need to start performing for 90 minutes instead of 45.”
“We got away with it in our previous games, but as a team we can't afford to only play in 45-minute periods. This is a bitter result after two wins in our last two games, but the first half was as bad as we have played. It was awful. We came out much better in the second half and if any team was going to win I thought it would be us, but this game kicks you where it hurts. In football you get a chance to put things right quickly, so we need to do that against Southend.”