Rochdale decision was '˜reluctant' - Jackson

Latics – riding high in League One – elected to postpone the trip to Spotland, after Sam Morsy (Egypt), Lee Evans (Wales), Owen Evans (Wales U21s) and Matija Sarkic (Montenegro U21s) were called up for international duty.

It’s the third time this term Latics have faced this dilemma, and drew criticism from many of the 2,000-plus fans who were planning on travelling.

“You just can’t win on this one,” Jackson told the Wigan Post. “We get criticised when we call games off, and we get criticised when we don’t.

“In hindsight, people will always be able to say we should have called the game off, or alternatively that we shouldn’t.

“Ultimately it’s the manager’s call, he makes the decision whether we play or not.

“On this occasion, with four players called up, including Lee Evans and Sam Morsy, who’ve been in the midfield for most of the matches, we felt it was the right thing to call it off.

“We didn’t want to, because we were all looking forward to the game.

“We’d sold a lot of tickets, and we also took that into consideration.

“But ultimately it’s about getting results on the pitch, which the fans will understand, and calling off the game was the right thing to do – albeit something we did reluctantly.”