Martinez - Painful lessons to be learned

Published: 23 Nov 2009 - 08:24:44

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Martinez - Painful lessons to be learned

Wigan Athletic boss Roberto Martinez admitted that his side's performance in the humiliating 9-1 defeat at Tottenham Hotspur had been totally unacceptable.

The Latics collapsed to a league record loss at White Hart Lane and Martinez pulled no punches in his summary of a dreadful performance.

He told the club's official website: "We need to take responsibility for the performance, for the first three or four goals our defending was really poor and we weren't ourselves at all, which is unacceptable.

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"We finished the first half really strong and felt really positive that we could get back into the game.

"But again we have only ourselves to blame for the way we defended, it was unacceptable and that's why we got punished. So yes we've lost a football game and we need to take this on board and move on.

"It wasn't like us at all, and we got punished heavily. We need to learn from this and make sure it never happens again.

"We have to feel hurt and down about it, but also understand the reasons why it happened and once we do that we'll be able to move on.

"We're looking at the bigger picture, which is the important thing and once the game was gone I had to make sure we didn't lose any more players ahead of the Sunderland game next weekend.

"So it's a very painful lesson, but we will bounce back from this and we'll be ready for next Saturday."