OLDHAM Athletic boss Dino Maamria wants there to be no let-up from his side when they host Crawley Town on Saturday.

Latics went down 2-0 at leaders Swindon Town last time out, slipping to 22nd in the League Two table in the process.

While that doesn’t look good on paper, Maamria was encouraged by what he believes was one of the best performances of his time in charge at Boundary Park.

The Latics boss, having made no secret of his desire to sign a striker in the January transfer window, was encouraged by how his side matched one of the top sides in the Football League’s bottom tier, only for a lack of a cutting edge to cost them dearly.

A late goal from former Oldham loanee Eoin Doyle made sure of the three points for the Robins, managed by another familiar face in Richie Wellens.

Crawley, under new manager John Yems, will provide a different test when they come to town, the Reds three points above Maamria’s men in 16th in the table and the boss hopes there is no drop in level from his side on home soil this weekend.

“The motivation for us was easy on Saturday,” said the Latics manager.

“When you play the top-of-the-table team you have to be at it.

“We were at it, I think we’ve got to make sure the following game if we produce this type of performance I’m sure we’ll win a lot of games.

“We’ve got to make sure we don’t go flat this week as sometimes when you put so much effort into a performance and you get nothing from it, it can happen.

“We’ve got to take a lot of positives from it and the way we pressed them first half and the way we played our football is exactly how we want to play.

“It’s a shame we didn’t score and if we did it would’ve been a different game, but we’ll live and learn with that and make sure we get some more work done on the training ground to make sure we are scoring goals.”

The Crawley game marks the start of a crunch eight days with a trip to bottom side Morecambe to come on Boxing Day, Latics currently five points clear of the side occupying this season’s solitary relegation place.

A Boundary Park clash with near neighbours Salford City then closes out the year on December 29.