Carlton Morris had headed the Town into a first-half advantage, before Tom Lockyer inadvertently turned Callum Lang’s cross-shot past Ethan Horvath and Latics substitute Thelo Aasgaard curled in an 88th-minute winner.
Bree said: “We are all absolutely gutted in there. On the pitch it felt like for 70 minutes we were absolutely cruising. I think we were just a little bit naïve towards the end when we were trying to push for that second goal, when they nicked it and got an equaliser.
“I think we had a decision to make, whether we play for a draw and sit back in, or if we go for it. The lads who came on were all attacking subs and rightly so, I think we went for the game and just made a few wrong decisions, they ended up winning 2-1 and it’s just not good enough really.”
The 24-year-old added: “We said the only way they were going to score was on the counter or from maybe a set piece, something like that. We’ve made a little mistake and they’ve got the goal. Then towards the end they’ve countered on us, we’re out of position and they’ve ended up scoring, so it’s the nightmare scenario really.”
Bree provided an assist for the Town goal for the second game in a row, after teeing up Gabe Osho for what proved to be the winner at Cardiff in midweek.
His disappointment at yesterday’s cross not counting for anything in the end was clear when he said: “It's nice for me personally to get assists, but when the game ends like that, it doesn’t really matter. If we go onto win it’s something you can look back on and it’s nice, but I don’t really care.”
The defeat meant Nathan Jones’ side missed out on the opportunity make it four games unbeaten, following the 2-0 win at Swansea, 1-1 home draw with Sheffield United and the victory at Cardiff.
It left Town in 16th place with nine points from eight matches, but Bree said: “It’s still early days in the season and there is plenty of time to get to where we want to be, and where we will be eventually.
“With it being such a good week for us, it felt like we could have had 12 points from the last 12 really. We’ve come away with seven, but it is what it is. We’ll go over it in the next couple of days and then we’ll move on.”
And on that elusive home win, he added: “We’ve been so good this season and it’s going to click for us at some point. It just takes us that one scrappy win to get us going and then we’ll be fine.”
