High time to make most of our opportunity

LEE CROFT

Latics’ wing wizard writes every week for Chron Sport

The last time we played Bury was one of a number of games in a period in which we should have won rather than just take a point.

I scored at Gigg Lane and once we had established that 1-0 lead, we had opportunities to put the game to bed. I remember James Wilson racing through the middle and shooting inches wide and there were other chances as well. Then, we got caught with the sucker-punch and had to settle for a draw.

What that tells us is that if we play well tomorrow, we can more than match Bury.

Looking further ahead, we have a massive game against Shrewsbury to come, which is our game in hand on sides above us in the table. After that we play Blackpool twice in 10 days. We know how important these games are to our season.

At Bradford last week, our plan was to nullify the threat of James Hanson and we looked comfortable up to the red card for Connor Brown. He couldn’t believe he was sent off and was gutted about the decision. But it seems to be the story of our season: those sort of things just don’t fall for us.

We can’t feel sorry for ourselves, though. It is up to us to pull ourselves out of trouble.

John Sheridan is back as manager and he got a great reception from the supporters at Bradford.

I expect there will be a special atmosphere for the local derby tomorrow and we hope to give the fans plenty to cheer about.