Joyce: Throwing in the kitchen sink is no good

A win could be enough to drag Wigan out of the Championship’s bottom three today as relegation rivals Bristol face title-chasing Newcastle United.

And after a week of heated discussion between fans about the state of the DW Stadium pitch, and Wigan Warriors moving their scheduled home match against Widnes last night to Cheshire, Joyce’s focus is remaining purely on his own agenda ahead of kick-off today.

“Just throwing the kitchen sink at it, you’ll get absolutely battered because you’ve got no way, no method of play,” he explained.

“The opposition is always there to try and stop you as well. There are some good sides in this league and some good players but we’ve hurt them and stopped them creating chances. “That’s what you’ve got to do - that’s the idea of football.”

After a week which saw Latics draw 0-0 at home to Preston last Saturday and lose 2-1 away to QPR on Tuesday, Joyce remains convinced his side’s performances are strong, and it is minor details that need tweaking to get them over the line.

“You’ve just got to stay consistent,” he said.

“Someone told me the stats of the last eight games doesn’t put us anywhere near the bottom three. If they had a league over the last eight games we’d be halfway up it at least.

“I think the performances have been good, we just have to turn them into points, it’s as simple as that.

“We have created chances. You’ve got to take them. The hardest little bit is the quality.”

Forest arrive at the DW Stadium on the back of straight losses to Norwich, Fulham and Sheffield Wednesday, while Latics have picked up four points in the same period.

It could be argued Wigan also have the psychological advantage of having beaten Forest in their last meeting, by 2-0 in the FA Cup third round last month.

But Joyce has warned tomorrow’s challenge will be completely different.

“They’re a different side now,” he said.

“I thought they were poor on that day to be fair.

“We played pretty well but apart from a 10-minute period at the start of the game I didn’t think they showed a great deal of fight.

“They’ve obviously improved on that - had some good performances, some good wins, so it will be another tough game for us.”

And while Joyce warned Gary Brazil’s side have threats up front, it is his own strike force he is focusing on as Wigan look to improve on their run of finding the net six times in their last five games.

“We’re not that concerned about them - it’s important we get ourselves right,” he said.

“They’ve got plenty of options, especially in the forward areas to hurt us.

“We have to be able to deal with that, give them some problems and score some goals in front of our fans.

“It’s been the same objective since the first day. You want to win every game that you play, it’s as simple as that.”

Joyce also revealed assessments on the fitness of Shaun MacDonald and Michael Jacobs will take place today.

“We didn’t get back ‘til four o’clock in the morning the other night (after QPR),the lads won’t be finally assessed until game day - we’ve not done a lot this week,” he said.