After an impressive pre-season build up the Latics came unstuck against Sheffield Wednesday in the televised League Cup first round match at Boundary Park. It could have been so different as the home side sailed into a deserved 2-0 half time lead and looked on course to cause an upset for their Championship opponents. New loan signing Jordan Slew had a dream start as he gave the Latics a seventh minute lead with a fine piece of finishing after James Wesolowski cut back the ball for him to shock the visitors. On the stroke of the half-hour mark it was 2-0 after Lee Croft delivered a cross which Jean-Yves M'voto headed home with some style. It looked like it was all over by the half as the vistors hadn't had a sniff of the goal other than a missed penalty kick from Slovenian international Nejc Pecnik after an unnecessary foul from Croft which he blasted over the bar.
The second half was a different story as the Latics ran out of steam. Two ex-Latics players, Jermaine Johnson and Chris O'Grady scored three goals to put the Yorkshiremen in the lead. Johnson's goal was the turning point as Latics keeper Alex Cisak let a harmless looking strike creep under his body. This mistake gave the visitors hope and they really took advantage. His counterpart Chris Kirkland on the other hand made two tremendous stops from Croft and Wesolowski to keep his team in the mix. If either of those efforts had gone in it would have been game, set and match. Antonio sealed the win for Wednesday with an angled shot with gave Cisak no chance. Matt Smith had two good attempts when he came on for his customary ten minutes but it was too little too late.
Paul Dickov said after the game, "It was a game of two halves and we started well. There are lots of positives to take from the first-half performance which is how I want the boys to play doing things right with and without the ball and we looked a very good team. Towards the end of the first half we get a little bit giddy, lost our shape and stopped doing the things which got us in front. The goals we conceded were sloppy from a team view and bad ones to concede which we have to look at as there were also a lot of negatives. We knew they would have a really good go at us in the second half as was proved. We had two great chances early in the second half and, had one of those gone in, it might have been different. I said to the boys whether it was the first game or the 31st, we have to learn from it and we have to better ourselves.”