Latics guest column: Michael Jacobs

We hit the bar a couple of times and had some other decent chances, but we always knew it was going to be a different game to Oxford last weekend.

Obviously Shrewsbury are right in there behind us in the table, and they set out to come here and frustrate us.

But we’ll take the point, we’ll move on and all thoughts on Charlton tonight.

On a personal note, I thought we were unlucky not get at least one penalty when I was fouled in the area.

The first time I just got across their lad, he’s clipped me and I’ve gone down.

I don’t really like talking about referees, but when you’re running at pace and there’s contact it’s hard to stay on your feet.

With the ball in a position where I’m about to have a shot, it doesn’t really make sense why I’d go down for no reason.

It’s frustrating, when you don’t get the decision, and it ends up costing the side two points in the end.

But you win some, you lose some...you get some, you don’t get some.

There’s nothing you can do, it’s one of those things.

The game on the whole was a bit more niggly than usual, and at this time of year – with the games coming thick and fast – it’s important to keep your discipline.

You can’t be afford to be involved with yellow and especially red cards, because you need everyone available at this stage of the year.

We’ve obviously set our standards high this year – we want to do well, we want to get promoted.

If you’d told us at the start of the season that we’d be in this position at the halfway stage, we’d have been happy.

At the same time, we know nothing’s won after 23 games.

It’s up to us to maintain those levels and try and stay where we are.

Next up for us is Charlton, and with the way we played at their place (a 3-0 victory in September), along with Oxford it was probably the best we’ve played all year.

They’ll obviously be wanting to get a bit of revenge, and will come here and try and stifle us.

They’ve been struggling for results recently, and it’s up to them to try and keep themselves in the mix.

Obviously most of the teams who have come to the DW have set up to try and stop us, which is a compliment to us.

Away from home, home fans want to see their side having more of a go, teams have come at us, and that’s given us more room to play.

I definitely see some the one from similarities between this team and two years ago, when of course we won the League One title.

Obviously back then we had a really dodgy start as all the new players got to know each other, and it took time to gel.

It was only after Christmas time we started to click – when I was out injured, come to think of it!

This time we’ve set our stall out from the start, we kept all our big players from last year like Powelly, Dan Burn, Sam Morsy.

You can see that spine through the team is so strong, and it was similar two years ago when we eventually got going.

Hopefully we can keep it going and get the same reward at the end of the season.

Michael Jacobs was speaking to Paul Kendrick