HARRY Kewell has praised his players' character but called for Latics to get on the front foot.

Kewell's men are up there with Manchester United as the team most likely to earn points from losing positions.

Oldham Athletic have recovered to earn 21 points after trailing and are the current comeback kings of football, alongside United.

But while the Latics boss is pleased with their tally, he would rather not have the tag.

"You can look at it both ways," said Kewell, when asked if the statistic was a sign of his players' character in adversity.

"Yes, you can say all that, or you can say 'why does it take us to go behind to go and win'. There are advantages and disadvantages of that.

"In an ideal world no you don't want to go behind, you want to stay in front and you want to kick on from there.

"Yes, ideally it's great that your team has a desire not to lose, but then you don't want to be losing in the first place, so it's a difficult one to really answer.

"It's fantastic that we're there but I'd prefer it if we take the lead and we control it from there."

Latics are the third highest scorers in League Two with 41, but in contrast have conceded the most along with second bottom Grimsby, which goes some way to explaining their struggle for consistency.

But Kewell is confident they are learning and growing together as a team and have a greater understanding of what he expects from them, and how to adapt to situations as they arise in games in order to get results.

"It's a slightly older team than it was six months ago. It's just about putting a system together and making these players play in a way that they need to understand that when it's time to play at a certain level we play this way, if it needs to go long it needs to go long," said the Latics boss.

"It's about giving them the option. It's not about 'we're playing this way and that's it', I don't believe in that, I believe you've got to be able to play an adaptive way of football."

Meanwhile, the kick-off time of Latics' Sky Bet League Two fixture against Barrow at Boundary Park later this month has now been brought forward to 7pm.

Following an additional request to the Football League, that was agreed by both clubs, the game will still take place on its original date (Tuesday, February 23) but now at an earlier time instead of the usual 7.45pm slot.

The fixture remains behind-closed-doors with live streaming available on iFollow.