David Unsworth described defeat to Altrincham as 'a major step back'.

Latics were fresh from their first league win and first clean sheet under their new manager, having beaten Yeovil 2-0 on Saturday.

But there was no sign of any momentum building on the back of it in a game in which goalmouth activity was at a premium.

After Chris Conn-Clarke had put Altrincham in front, Jordan Clarke went closest for Latics with a header off the crossbar, only for the defender to go off straight after when a clash of heads left him with an eye wound that required stitches, adding to an already lengthy injury list.

"We take a slight step forward and a major one back and it's very difficult to stand here and not be honest and be protective of the players, which I am and I always will be, because they're my responsibility. But how do you protect them from what my eyes have just seen," said Unsworth after the defeat at Moss Lane.

"It's our inconsistency. There's nothing in the game, they score from the edge of the box, we don't close it down - it doesn't mean enough to us to close it down.

"As poor as we can be in possession, what we can't be is poor out of possession, which is organisation. One thing that we spoke about and we've worked on is our organisation without the ball, but if you don't close the ball down sooner or later someone sticks it in the top corner.

"And then we go up the other end and we hit the bar, and that sums the game up.

"There was nothing in it. It was ugly for both teams and we should be saying 'it was ugly, we got a point, we move on' and we try to make small improvements, but it's a big step back, there's no denying that. We can't defend the indefensible."

Unsworth added: "It's just the inconsistency of the group that we've inherited. We're trying all the time to add to it, it's really difficult. I don't want our supporters to think we're not working round the clock to try to get better players in, we are, but at the same time we can't change the whole team.

"We're in the middle of the season and we've got to try to do things on the pitch. Just when you think you're doing okay it bites you on the backside.

"We should be leaving with a 0-0 and we might be disappointed with the way we played but it would have been a clean sheet, and that's just a sucker punch."

Latics were booed off by a sell-out 1,606-strong away end. But while Unsworth says his players need to hear and respond to that reaction, he recognises that the problems stretch way beyond the current crop.

"We are a team and we are a club that has been unfortunately unloved and been losing for a long time and we're trying to put up the biggest wall and dam to stop that happening and tonight there's been a major leak," he said.

"It's really tough. But given the time, given the changes we want to make, we'll get there, but it doesn't happen overnight.

"It's a huge rebuild that is required, by us all. And I heard the fans at the end, quite right. The players need to hear that. I think it's important that they need to hear the expectation of our fans, if they didn't know already. And if they can't handle it they need to come and tell me and leave. They need to come and tell me and go and play somewhere where they can be in a comfort zone because our club, with me, in charge, I can't take many performances like that. I wouldn't be standing here, somebody else would, but I just can't accept it.

"We've got a big game on Saturday now and we've got to bounce back."