PETER Reid has urged Owen Coyle to “go back to basics” if he wants to turn round Wanderers’ season.

The former Burnden Park midfielder, turned manager, believes a more defensive approach is now necessary to restore levels of confidence damaged after relegation and an inconsistent start to the campaign.

The Whites have kept just one clean sheet in their last 24 games, spread over all competitions, dating back to the start of the year. And Reid reckons Coyle could remedy the club’s defensive ills on the training pitch to help ease the pressure currently building around him.

“When you are looking at it from the outside, they are always conceding,” he said in a radio interview aired on TalkSport.

“I can’t remember the last time they got a clean sheet.

“Sometimes, as a manager when your team is struggling, you try and go back to basics. You go ‘listen, we’re not going to concede today, we’re going to keep it tight – we might nick one with a corner, a dead ball, a bit of magic. We’ll win the game, and that brings confidence’.

“You know you are going to have to score loads to win every game if you don’t keep clean sheets.

“Who am I to give advice? But that’s what I’d do. Dig results out and try and get some confidence because at that level, they have got some decent players.”