Wolves boss Walter Zenga on respect for Wigan, Brentford mistakes and squad rotation

Walter Zenga's message is clear. He is demanding that his team don't underestimate Wigan Athletic, despite their lowly league position.

The Latics are winless in seven and sit at the bottom of the Championship.

But Zenga isn't interested where Wigan are in the table.

"First of all I think they are not in the right position that they deserve to be, because it's a good team," he said.

"I saw them play in their last two or three games with a good intensity, they lost the game on the limit.

"They stay all the time in the game. They have two or three very interesting players – (Will) Grigg, Jordi Gomez is a very nice player and (Shaun) MacDonald gives balance to the team.

"They have some things that are very important.

"We must start the game in the right way, with the right mentality and we will find this game very difficult."

Wolves have won their last two league games, beating Newcastle 2-0 and Brentford 3-1.

Zenga revealed he held a long team meeting on Monday to analyse the Brentford game – and tell the players where they'd gone wrong.

"In 30 minutes I show all of the mistakes we did against Brentford," he said. "It was very long. I take this opportunity, because we won the game, and because when you win it's the right time to show something. And it's before another important game.

"I can show to the team where we have to improve, and in which way we have to improve.

"We already analysed the situation and tomorrow before the game we'll analyse again.

"It's only about the mentality.

"We talk about all the time 'oh you must have a winning mentality'...but a winning mentality is not the team that wins all the games. It's the team that every day makes the best day of their life. So in every training session the winning team is the one that wants to improve.

"Believe me, if only one player improves by 10 per cent that's just 10 per cent. In one team – if every player improves one per cent then that's 11 per cent. So it's all the team that makes one step higher, not one player.

"We as a team have to think exactly in this way.

"We played against Ipswich and Burton and Rotherham – three teams below us in the ranking and we make three draws.

"In my opinion the season can be a different season if you take three points from the teams behind you. To do this you have to have the humility to understand that every game is not easy, and the humility to understand any team can run more than you."

Zenga selected the same XI for those last two victories and he suggested he will no longer make wholesale changes, like when he rotated seven players for the Burton draw and five for the 4-0 defeat to Barnsley.

"There is not a right way, it depends on the moment," he added.

"I think when a coach makes changes they're not doing it because they want to.

"You have to know how the players are, how they feel, the confidence that they have.

"Sometimes the first question is – why do you have to change? Or sometimes you have to change, and where?

"You can read that we won the game 3-1 (Brentford) and 2-0 (Newcastle) and everything is okay, but inside there were some problems.

"If you make one or two changes it's a normal rotation. If you change five or six, it's a real turnover and it can be that you affect the team or the performance.

"It's also true that we have more than 20 games from now to January.

"And then freshness and sharpness are welcome in the team.

"You cannot squeeze all the players for a long period."