Wigan Athletic guest column - Chey Dunkley

Even a point would have been a positive, but it wasn’t to be.

They got the all-important first goal and they seemed to grow in stature, as you’d expect them to do at home.

In my head, I always felt we were going to get something, even right to the end.

At 1-0 you’ve always got a chance, unlike when it gets to 2-0 and 3-0 as it has recently and it’s gone.

You always think you’re going to get one last chance at the end, but it just never came.

It was a disappointing goal to concede, their lad had a lot of space to run into and pick his spot.

Apart from that, I thought we did a lot of positive stuff in the game, especially the back five.

But as much hard work as we’ve put in, we’ve still come away having lost 1-0.

You can block as many balls as you like, but if one goes in and it’s decisive, it means nothing.

We’ve got to move on from this, learn the lessons we need to and take it into the Nottingham Forest game this weekend.

It’s another tough game, but this is a tough league – and at the same time, anybody can beat anybody.

I’m sure the gaffer will have us ready to play, clued up about their strengths and their weaknesses.

The important thing is we come up with a performance that does us justice.

Against Villa I feel we did that, against Wednesday it wasn’t quite there.

Forest are a big side with big expectations who’ve been in and around the play-offs for a few years now.

Yes it’ll be a tough game, but we know we can hurt good teams on our day.

We proved that in the home game against Forest at the start of the season, when we were unlucky to only draw the game.

Maybe we could just do with a little bit luck, which we managed to get against Villa.

A lot’s been made about the away record – more so out of the camp than inside.

We’re not really thinking too much about that to be honest.

Games are tough in the league whether they’re at home or away.

And any point you can pick up – be it at home or away – is crucial.

Once we get that win, it’s then about trying to build on it.

We couldn’t do that last week, the challenge now is to make it happen this week.

We’ve never really been able to go on a proper run this season, apart from right at the beginning.

And we can’t keep waiting for it to happen – we’ve got to make it happen.

But I can assure the fans we’re working as hard as we can and doing everything to try to do so.

* Chey Dunkley was speaking to Paul Kendrick