Micky Mellon said Oldham Athletic gave themselves too much to do against Swindon Town, after trailing for the third game in a row.

Ian Holloway’s side got an early advantage against Latics, just like Accrington Stanley and Colchester United had done in the two games beforehand, in cup and league.

But unlike the fightback against Colchester United, which earned them a point in their first home game back in League Two last Saturday, striker Joe Quigley’s first goal for the club proved to be nothing more than a consolation here, after Swindon scored in the fourth minute and added a second just 15 minutes later.

“We spoke before, we’ve spoken since the Accrington game about starts to games, we spoke about contacts and doing the right things that were necessary. We spoke about the one v one moments that you have to represent us, with and without the ball, the players were speaking about it before the game, make sure we win the right to play the battle, make sure we keep the back door shut and don’t make poor decisions. We just didn’t do that and gave ourselves too much to do and gave them the opportunity to control the tempo when the ball went dead,” said Mellon.

“It was us not starting well enough, and I’m disappointed with that.

“We have to learn from that, we’re losing too many first goals which is giving us games to chase too many times.

“We just have to keep putting that message in there. The players – they’re a good group, they’re a humble group – they have to understand that you have to do better and learn and be streetwise that you’ve got to dig in from the start, you don’t control the tempo because you want to have a jog around, you have to fight for the right to do what you do for the team and from the start we didn’t do that in too many areas, which made it difficult for ourselves.

“We weren’t winning enough knockdowns, weren’t doing the jobs that we need people to do in order for us to have done better in that first 17 minutes. Just people coming off what we need them to do, all the way right through the team, it was absolutely way off what we need to do, so that was disappointing.

“We gave ourselves a mountain to climb but then we get a goal back, a wee bit huffy-puffy. And then second half we probably did a bit more, but when the moments come and you need to show a bit of quality we were lacking in that far too much. There were too many times when you felt, ‘go on then show me what you’ve got’, or ‘show me a better cross, win a header, win a knockdown’. We never showed anywhere near enough quality at those times that would have been needed to get us something out of the game, so we’re really disappointed.”

Mellon was encouraged, however, by Quigley getting off the mark in only his second game after signing from Forest Green Rovers.

“It’s good. Forwards are there to score goals, or threaten. That’s what they’re in the team to be and they live and die by that,” said hte Latics boss.

“We just weren’t the version of ourselves needed today from the start that needed to happen in order to look at us being the team that we know we can be.”

There is no time to wallow for Latics, though, with a midweek trip to Bristol Rovers to prepare for.

“It’s painful now, but you’ve got to show character,” Mellon added. “It will be a miserable weekend now but that’s the way it should be. You should care enough that it should hurt, and it does. We let ourselves down.

“As a team and a group we have to recover, come back on Monday and speak again about the stuff that we could have done better and speak about the stuff that we’re going to have to bring to Bristol on Tuesday night in order to give ourselves a chance of winning a game of football.”

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