HARRY Kewell insists he won’t feel any nerves about his side’s league position after they slipped to the bottom of the EFL following their 3-2 defeat against Morecambe on Saturday.

Latics again found themselves on the wrong end of a five-goal thriller at Boundary Park as goals from Aaron Wildig, Alex Kenyon and Cole Stockton sent the visitors to the top of the League Two table.

In-form forward Conor McAleny did manage to take his tally for the season to eight goals with a second-half brace but Kewell’s men caused much of their own downfall with a what overall was a lacklustre team display.

“We let ourselves down,” said the Latics boss at full-time.

“Don’t get me wrong, Morecambe are a decent team but if we’d have matched our own work rate from Tuesday (in the EFL Trophy against Doncaster) then we would have been successful.

“We worked on a few things and the idea was to have the same mentality and the same work rate but I never got that.

“Players have to take responsibility, they defended great in the week but we need to just carry that over (to the weekend).

“I’m not a believer in feeling nervous at the bottom. I believe you create your own pathways and you create them through hard work - so if players want to sit there and worry that we’re down there then they’re not the players for me.”

The result leaves the club without a win from their opening five league games ahead of their trip to face fellow strugglers Bolton Wanderers next Saturday.

And with a number of midweek fixtures within a packed league schedule to come afterwards, Kewell stressed that it’s now up to his players to start getting better results sooner rather than later.

“I need players to stand up and know that this is going to be a fight and we just need everyone to be on board,” he added.

“It’s one of those (situations) where you do as much as you can to prepare them properly and it’s about them stepping across that line.

“You’re wearing the badge for the club, it’s a privilege to be able to wear it and we have to be able to take that and move forward.

“You have to work every day, we’re trying to change it and hopefully the players will get it.

“If we don’t, we’ll find ourselves in bother.”