Sean Clare taking positives from season with aims of a strong finish

Latics most recently left the capital with a point after a hard-fought 2-2 result against Charlton, with Charlie Kelman bagging a brace in the 450-mile round trip.

And while Clare says that safety is a positive, he still insists that the side want to finish the season strongly with three games remaining.

“I think the staff and the players have to take credit, and the fans,” Clare said.

“It’s been a real team effort to get to where we are.

“I think it can look a little bit worse than it is because we know of the quality that we have, we know how good we can be and we know there are some results that we should have done better on and that would have had us further up the table.

“But when you take things into consideration, minus eight points and not having much money to spend in the summer, it's been good.

“A lot of the younger players have come in and done really well and I think it is definitely a positive season and something to build on.

“But I don’t think we can sit back on that. We have games left, we need to go and finish as strong as we can and also learn from the mistakes that we’ve made this season in terms of consistency and stuff like that to really push on and go forwards.”

Clare missed the goalless draw with Port Vale and was on the bench in the defeat to Cambridge United, but returned with a starting spot in the midweek fixture against his former club at The Valley.

However, boss Shaun Maloney admits that the 27-year-old is a doubt for Saturday’s trip to Lincoln City.

“I’ve been working hard, obviously I’ve not been in the team recently, I’ve been in and out for different reasons,” Clare said.

“But you have to back yourself, you have to be ready when called upon and I was happy that I could help the team in any way I could and hopefully I can continue staying in the team and helping.”