Latics player column: Shaun MacDonald

Obviously that was a very frustrating weekend for everyone at the club.

When you lose games, it’s always frustrating and it can really affect your weekend.

And that wasn’t just a bad result but a bad performance as well.

I know results haven’t gone our way for a lot of the season, but we had at least been in the games, and performing well.

We felt like we were going forward, and there has been a lot of stuff happening, a lot of change going on, and we all need to stick together and keep going in the right direction.

We’ve got a good bunch of lads here, we all need to believe in ourselves, and I’m sure the new manager will give us that little bit of confidence we need.

On a personal note, I’m just looking forward to getting to know the new manager a bit more.

I was only in for a couple of days last week and then away for a week on international duty, which can be difficult.

But I’m back now and ready to give my 100 per cent, as I always do, and put everything into work ahead of the weekend.

Barnsley have started well, you could see the confidence was there from day one, and they’re a team that scores a lot of goals.

Every game is a battle in the Championship, especially when you go away from home.

And that’s probably the most disappointing thing about our last game against Reading – we want to do so well in front of our own fans.

We can’t dwell on that, though.

As players we have to focus on the next game and try and pick up as many points as we can before Christmas.

We have to concentrate on one game at a time, and try to get that winning feeling back as quickly as possible.

I think some people are starting to realise that the Championship – and I knew this anyway – is not an easy league.

There’s so many challenges every single week, with so many styles of play, and you have to go into the game knowing you’re going to have to work 100 per cent and battle if you want to get anything out of it.

You’re hoping all the things you’ve been working on work in your favour.

We’ve got a very honest bunch of lads here – I can’t speak highly enough of the lads for the way they’ve welcomed me here.

I’m sure the new manager will also realise that soon, when he gets to know each other.

It can be hard when the results are not going your way, but you have to stay positive otherwise there’s no point.

We all have ups and downs in life, as we do in football, and you have to stay focused and realistic.

There’s a lot of points still to play for, you go on a run and who knows what might happen.

It was nice to be involved with the Wales squad once more, although we didn’t get the result we wanted last weekend against

Serbia.

I thought the performance was very good overall, we were 1-0 up thanks to another goal from Gareth Bale.

I wouldn’t say we were comfortable but we’re winning.

Then from possibly

going 2-0 up, when Gareth hit the post, and probably game over, they break and score a goal at the other end.

At that level, that’s all it takes, a goal can come from anywhere.

But all you can do is keep going, and we’re confident we can still go on and qualify.

Obviously we wanted to sign off for the winter with a positive performance and positive result.

But sometimes you can’t stop everything, it’s probably the one open chance they’ve had, and they’ve scored.

It’s back to club football now, and concentrating on getting some much-needed results for Wigan.

It’s a cliche, but you’ve just got to take each game as it comes – that’s how I work anyway.

The Serbia game’s gone now, we can’t do anything to change it, and it’s got to be 100 per cent concentration on Wigan and the next game here.