Caldwell: We will get it right

Latics suffered their fourth defeat on the spin at Carrow Road on Tuesday, having shot themselves in the foot with only two minutes gone when a short goal-kick routine led to Bogdan being robbed on the edge of his six-yard box by Jacob Murphy.

He tapped home before adding what proved to be the winning goal eight minutes later from all of a yard.

Despite a much-improved second-half showing, Lattics were unable to get back on level terms, having given themselves hope thanks to Jordi Gomez’s strike inside the final quarter.

But Caldwell was delighted with the way his side dominated much of the game against one of the favourites for promotion, and does not want an obvious individual error cast a shadow on the bigger picture.

“I just don’t think Adam saw him,” assessed Caldwell.

“He’s taken his touch, and it was a fine touch, and I think he thought he had more time than he did. What I was happy with was his mentality after – he never stopped doing it, what I ask him to do.

“As long as he keeps doing that, and we keep working hard on the training pitch, we will get it right.

“We need to keep working hard on the different options we can give him.

“We were straight back to training on Wednesday morning, and looking forward to Saturday with great optimism, because that is the standard.

“In terms of what I asked from them, and what they gave me, I couldn’t be happier.

“We have to take that into Saturday and make sure we get a win.”

Caldwell believes Bogdan has the mental strength to keep playing the ball out from the back, despite the obvious temptation to revert to a more basic approach following his blooper.

“You need a strong mentality to do that, especially when you’ve made a mistake,” the Latics chief added.

“Football is a game of mistakes – everyone on that pitch made a mistake at Norwich.

“Some you get punished for, some you get away with.

“We got punished for Adam’s on Tuesday, but the reaction was what I wanted to see.

“If we can take that into the rest of the season, we’ll be fine.

“The lads don’t need to keep their heads up.

“If you can play like the way we did, you can always walk away with your head held high.”