Wigan Athletic guest column: Chey Dunkley

Three big games – two in the league and one of the FA Cup Cup – that will go a long way towards shaping our season.

We know we’ve got two massive league games – against Scunthorpe on Sayturday and Bradford next Wednesday – before we can even think about Southampton next weekend.

And we’re all totally determined not to lose focus on the league.

We’ve managed to do it well so far, switching from one competition to the other.

And hopefully that should help us this week.

The FA Cup quarter-final is by no means more important than the next two.

Every game we’ve got left between now and the end of the season could be considered a cup final.

We’ll treat each game with the same importance, the same amount of respect, and that should see us through.

I know people will say we lost the two league games (against Southend and Blackpool) immediately before the Manchester City game in the last round of the FA Cup, and that’s fair enough.

But that’s something the gaffer will be hammering into us, the danger of that happening again, and we’re determined not to suffer the same fate.

All we can do is look at it game by game, and not look at what’s just around the corner.

We’ve got 14 cup finals to come in the league, plus at least one cup final in the FA Cup.

We can’t afford for any slip-ups at this stage of the season, because that could end our hope of achieving what we want to achieve.

Obviously we’re desperate to ensure that doesn’t happen but, at the same time, you can never guarantee it won’t.

All you can do is prepare in the right way, as you would every week, and trust that your preparation will get you through.

We’re certainly in confident enough mood at the moment going into such a big week.

We showed a lot of character to rescue at point at Blackburn last weekend, coming up with two goals when we needed them against a very strong side at the top of the table.

Usually with a two-goal lead you’d expect Blackburn to hang on against most of the teams in this division.

But for us to come back and manage to go away with something tells you a lot about the quality and character and belief we have in our team.

Hopefully that will give us some kind of psychological advantage to take into the remaining league games.

We’ll be on a little bit of a high because of the way we rescued a point.

They’ll maybe be on a little bit of a low with the way they’ll consider it two points dropped.

You’re looking for any kind of advantage at this stage of the season, and hopefully that will go in our favour.

We’ve got four games in hand now, with six points to make up, and obviously we need to make the most of them.

The more points we pick up, the more pressure we can put on them, and that’s our aim.

Chey Dunkley was speaking to Paul Kendrick