"Players owe themselves a performance"

The Blues boss said in the immediate aftermath of the game he was embarrassed by the display as Wanderers landed themselves in deep trouble with a 4-0 thrashing.

He said the team "let everyone down" with their lack of effort in a defeat that leaves them four points from safety with just four games to go despite an unbeaten seven match run prior to that.

But Waddock has told his men to perform for themselves rather than him - and is confident he will get a reaction from them against Oldham tomorrow.

He said: "They don't owe me a performance, they owe themselves a performance, the fans and their families as well - they owe them all a performance. They don't owe me one.

"They've been excellent until the Chesterfield result. It's now about how we react to that disappointment.

"We've seen the reaction over the course of the season when we've had disappointment and I'm sure we'll get a reaction.

"What was said after the game was right, we let everyone down. Maybe it was one game too many but the run we had was always going to come to an end. It wasn't going to go on forever."

In the post-match inquest Waddock was left fuming at his side's lack of effort and commitment, especially as it followed seven matches where Wanderers couldn't be described as being second best in any of them.

He said: "In all those games we gave a good account of ourselves against good opposition. Chesterfield was a different matter. We had a poor result up there last year and it continued over the Easter period."

Wanderers showed at Chesterfield how quickly a side's fortunes can change - and he warned the same thing could happen at Adams Park tomorrow when they face an Oldham side on the back of five successive defeats and nine losses in eleven games in total.

He said: "Runs come to an end. We came off the back of an unbeaten run with a heavy defeat at Chesterfield.

"That's up to them [Oldham] to be alarmed, if they are alarmed. My concern is bouncing back from our disappointment at Chesterfield. Everybody now is looking at their performance and their own results."

Oldham boss Paul Dickov will be without the suspended Jean-Yves M'Voto, who picked up his second red card of the season against Charlton, and the injured Chris Taylor, Alex Cisak, Paul Black, James Wesolowski and Zander Diamond as he looks for his side to score for the first time in more than eight hours.