Latics guest column - Dan Burn

To be fair, we couldn’t have tried any harder to get the goal at Reading last weekend.

But it’s been the story of the season.

As a team, we haven’t scored enough goals - simple as that.

It means the Leeds game on Sunday is a nothing game, which obviously we didn’t want to be the case.

All we can do now is try and put on a show for the fans, to take something into next season.

Everyone in the dressing room is so bitterly disappointed with how things have worked out.

Obviously when I signed here last summer from Fulham, the intention wasn’t to get relegated.

We wanted to have a real go at this league, and we really thought we could.

The disappointing thing looking back is we’ve been so close on so many occasions.

We never got really smashed through the whole season.

We lost so many games by the odd goal, which is so frustrating.

You look at Rotherham, and I think they can sort of accept why they’re going down because of the number of points they’ve picked up.

But we came so close to getting more points on a number of occasions, and that makes it even worse.

It’ll be a difficult game in many ways this weekend against Leeds.

You don’t want to it to get to the stage where it’s a glorified friendly.

At the end of the day, we want to put on a good performance for the fans, with it being the last home game.

Hopefully there’ll be a few goals and we can get the win to end on a high.

It would be nice to sign off with something to send the fans home happy and wanting to come back next season.

On a personal note, I have been pretty pleased with my form.

I struggled for the first month or so, and there were a lot of things going on - I was finding somewhere to live, family, and stuff.

But since I settled and started to play every week, I felt I was putting in some good performances.

Obviously I’d trade all that to still be in the Championship, but it wasn’t to be.

It sounds obvious, but the more you settle into a team, the more consistent your performances are going to be.

The players know what other players are going to be doing, especially in the back four - when someone will drop and when someone will stay high.

Last summer, I was coming in to a team where I didn’t know anyone.

And I had never played with any of the players before.

Sometimes we were playing in a back three, where maybe I’m not as comfortable as in a back four.

It was difficult at first, but I want to learn, and the more the backline played together, the more solid we became.

It’s nice to hear and read good things about my performances, especially from the other lads in the press.

But I have to say a lot of them have contributed to my performances.

It’s been a real team effort.

I’ve got my honeymoon coming up this summer, so that is something to look forward to.

The last few summers I have been away quite a bit, but I think I’ll be chilling out a little bit more more.

I’ll get back home to Newcastle, spend a few weeks up there, and see some old faces.

The important thing is to get some rest and be ready to come back for the start of pre-season - and put things right next year.