Latics guest column - Michael Jacobs

I'll hopefully be good to go for the weekend and the visit of Bradford.
Michael JacobsMichael Jacobs
Michael Jacobs

I’ve had a long-standing thigh injury that’s been a bit niggly since the Walsall game (on September 30).

It’s been sort of hit and miss since, I’ve not really been able to get over it.

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I sat out the FA Cup game last week (against Crawley), and obviously the international break’s done me the world of good.

To have had that two or three-week period has allowed me to get it right, get back to training and hopefully pick it up now.

It’s been annoying, because it’s one of those injuries that you can feel, but you can’t feel, if that makes sense.

That’s made the last few weeks really difficult but hopefully I’m over that now.

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Playing in my position makes it even worse, because it’s all about high-intensity runs, sprints, trying to be positive with the ball, and running at people.

That’s really hindered me for a lot of this season, but the main thing is making sure it’s right and making sure it doesn’t happen again.

It’s been a tough period for the boys even though we’ve been doing really well.

The games have come thick and fast so far this season, and it’s nice to have had a fortnight without a league game.

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That’s enabled us to have a few days off, and will hopefully mean we’re all raring to go for Bradford this weekend.

You’ve also got people like Sam (Morsy) going away and playing for Egypt, and that’s obviously a massive honour for him and for us as a club.

He’ll come back with a spring in his step and that only be good for us.

It was a pretty good weekend for us without even kicking a ball, with some results going in our favour.

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You look at Bradford getting beat at home by Plymouth, and then Peterborough getting held to a draw by Wimbledon.

But like we’ve said all season, the most important thing is us and what we do.

We just need to keep concentrating on ourselves and everything will take care of itself.

It’s a huge game for us against Bradford.

They’re obviously doing well, they’re a very strong side and been challenging in League One for a number of years.

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They won’t make it easy for us, but we just have to back ourselves to win the game, and getting back to the form we were in probably four or five weeks ago.

They’ve brought quite a few new faces in, changed their side around from even last year.

Charlie Wyke looks a handful up front, and is scoring as handful in this league.

It’s important we try and keep an eye on him, but all through the team they’ve got threats that we need to watch out for.

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They’ve changed their style of play a little bit under Stuart McCall from the way they played under the previous manager, Phil Parkinson.

That makes it a different challenge to what we’ve faced in the past, but it will be no less difficult and we’re all well aware of that.

Michael Jacobs was speaking to Paul Kendrick