Micky Mellon said 10-man Latics let their fans down after their eight-game unbeaten run was ended by a 3-0 defeat at lowly AFC Fylde.

The managerless Coasters had previously won just once in 13 league games - a run that contributed to the sacking of Adam Murray earlier this month, with former Carlisle United boss Chris Beech temporarily filling the void alongside his role as director of football.

Mellon is just two games into his Boundary Park tenure, but did not shirk responsibility for a miserable night at Mill Farm.

"We got out-run, right from the start. We didn't match them, we didn't win enough battles, we didn't want to win the running battles and we lost two really, really cheap goals from basic running," said the Latics boss.

"The basics of football are that you've got to be prepared to run, and if you want to play for teams like Oldham that should be a bare minimum. You must match or overcome the running and we just didn't do it enough.

"We did on Saturday, we spoke about it before we came over, speaking about character and making sure that we understood that we had to do the basics on a Tuesday night over at Fylde and we just didn't do it.

"We let a fantastic travelling fanbase down. And I say we, all of us."

Latics were hindered by having to play for over 50 minutes with 10 men, after captain Liam Hogan was sent off for two bookable offences in quick succession.

But they were already 2-0 down at that point and had a mountain to climb after conceding twice in four minutes, with poor defending inviting chances for Berat Ustabasi in the ninth minute and Josh Kay in the 13th, after a 15-minute delay to kick-off.

Ustabasi completed the scoreline in the third minute of stoppage time after a mistake by Mark Shelton, who had replaced Harrison McGahey in the line-up as the only change to the side that had earned bragging rights in Saturday's pulsating derby at Rochdale.

"We didn't want to use Harrison tonight because he's had such a long injury. We spoke to him and he was professional enough to agree and he felt the same because when he's had long lay-offs and he's come back he's picked up other injuries, so it was just a common sense thing," Mellon explained.

"But then we go down to 10 men and he's got to go on and he's got to go and play. We could do nothing about that.

"We just had to try to find a way of staying in the game and try to get that goal to try to get back in it."

Of Hogan's dismissal for two fouls, Mellon added: "I think it's two bookings.

"He's a good honest player, Hogan, and he's just got the wrong side of the second one.

"He fell, but he's held the lad and I think it's two yellows.

"We rallied a wee bit at the end, but the game had sort of got away from us by then and we had to show a bit of quality, passing quality, movement quality, imagination quality towards being that Oldham team that we will see.

"I was really disappointed because people came a long way to support us and on the evening we've let them down, so that's on all of us. I'm disappointed with that."