Boycey sends out battle-cry for second-half of season
Emmerson Boyce has stressed that Latics must start grinding out results and getting points on the board in order to steer clear of the relegation zone.
Saturday's defeat to Everton should have brought about a result after Latics created a good number of opportunities and Boyce, who featured at right-back, admitted that missed chances can, and will, hurt you in the end.
"The Everton result was a hard one to take because we all thought we played well, but in the Premier League if you don't take your chances and score your goals you get hurt and that's what's happened," said Boyce.
"We've got to realise now that we're in a dog-fight down at the bottom, and the priority is to not drop into that bottom three. Once you're in there it's tough to get out, we have to make sure that doesn't happen and it makes every league game vital from now on.
"Whether home or away we have to start picking up points, there have been too many occasions this season when we should have got a result from games but come away with nothing. This league is unforgiving and we need to start picking up points, starting this weekend.
"We've got to learn as a team how to grind out results and it's frustrating at the moment that we're either winning or losing with no real consistency."
Boyce also pointed out that individually and as a team, the players must take responsibility for their performances and make sure they all have that fighting spirit needed to stay in the Premier League.
"Our defending set-pieces is something we have to address, we've conceded far too many from those kinds of situations this season and it has to stop. It's cost us against Everton when we should have at least got a point, and not for the first time.
"We all hold our hands up, we've all made mistakes this season but we need to correct it now and make sure it doesn't go on.
"Everyone's got to stand-up now, a few of us have been in this situation before and we know it's not nice. Once you're in there it's hard to get out and we don't want to go into the last weeks of the season worrying about whether we're going to stay up or not.
"We've got a great team here, we've just got to start believing in ourselves and learn that if things don't go our way then we have to try and grind things out, we're in a battle now and we have to battle as a team, fight as a team and get the points we need."
