Rob's blast after demolition derby
Roberto Martinez has challenged his players to 'take responsibility' for the demolition derby at Bolton and come out fighting against Aston Villa tomorrow.
Latics have an instant opportunity to make amends for the 4-0 thrashing at the Reebok against Martin O'Neill's outfit.
And the Wigan boss is hoping for a repeat of the performance that did for Liverpool last week, as opposed to that which gifted Bolton three points on Saturday.
Martinez said: "It's important we don't repeat the mistakes we made on Saturday in the next nine games and try to improve our consistency.
"In football, it's important to respond and take responsibility for bad results, and we can do that by showing a positive reaction tomorrow.
"It will be a tough end to the season for all of the teams down there. Every win will be difficult to achieve, which makes Saturday's result so disappointing.
"To beat Liverpool shows what we are capable of, but we have to maintain those standards every week.
"We couldn't, and we got heavily punished. But it's about the reaction now and getting this feeling out of our bodies as soon as possible.
"We know Saturday was a big fixture for the fans and it has been a massive disappointment for them, but we have to look forward now and Aston Villa."
Latics started brightly at the Reebok and should have perhaps had a penalty in the opening skirmishes.
However, it was the Trotters who grabbed the all-important opening goal through Johan Elmander, before they killed the game in the second period with a penalty of the own followed by two more goals.
"It's a hard result to take, but key decisions went against us," Martinez said.
"I thought there was a key moment in the third minute, when Hugo was fouled and we should have had a penalty.
"If we had got that, it would have been a completely different game, but after that everything went against us.
"The second goal was a real blow to us, because we felt at half-time that we could get back in to the game.
"We had created some half-chances, and it was such a soft penalty to concede.
"We couldn't compete as well as we normally do and we have to make sure we rid ourselves of this feeling with a good displaytomorrow."
Latics will be hoping for the same kind of reaction tomorrow as that shown by Bolton, who themselves were hammered 4-0 in their previous match at Sunderland.
"Four games in 12 days is a huge demand on the players, and results like this can happen," Martinez said.
"We have to make sure we match that reaction against Villa, and we'll be looking to get rid of this feeling as soon as we can."
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Weather for Wigan
Thursday 02 September 2010
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: 8 C to 22 C
Wind Speed: 8 mph
Wind direction: East
Tomorrow
Sunny spells
Temperature: 9 C to 20 C
Wind Speed: 8 mph
Wind direction: South east
