Oldham Story — January 2010

Hello everyone, welcome back to my career with the Latics! At the end of December we were sitting pretty at the top of the table, well above our mid table expectation. The players were quite tired after a busy schedule, thankfully we had a less busy series of matches ahead of us.

At the end of the last post I mentioned that we had done a deal to bring Alan Sheehan to the club. He has good technical skills, he will be my first choice left back for the remainder of the season at least.

The first match of the new year was a trip to mid table Swindon. Pawel Abbott and Chris Taylor were out injured so Kieran Lee and Rhys Murphy came in, in what was probably going to be Murphy’s last game at the club. Before the game I arranged a deal for Michael Potts to come on loan from Man City. He has pretty decent attributes, he could be a useful player for us.

He started the match on the bench, we started the match quite well. We had been on top and were rewarded when Febian Brandy beat a defender, and with his back to goal, turned his man and slotted in. After the goal the match became more even, but no goals were scored until the 84th minute, Swindon grabbed an equaliser through Billy Pantyer. I was still getting over conceding when substitute Potts ran onto a through ball and calmly finished past the keeper. I was happy but just as I thought a victory was coming our way disaster struck; Swindon broke through the defence and Jonathan Douglas placed it in. I was disappointed with the late equaliser, but I suppose a 2-2 draw isn’t so bad.

Next up for us was our first home game of the year, we were facing play off hopefuls Leyton Orient. The match was very even, we had more possession, they had more shots, mostly from long range. It was the away side that took the lead, we conceded another goal from a corner, a theme throughout the season. We reacted superbly to going behind, just three minutes later Brandy placed the ball in and drew us level. I then decided to set our strategy from ‘Control’ to ‘Attacking’ and in the hope of getting a winner, and it payed of when Deane Smalley smashed in a volley at the back post. It was a worthy winner and that’s what it proved to be, we held on for all three points.

After the game Rhys Murphy departed back to Arsenal and I wasted no time replacing him, Lauri Dalla Valle was brought in on a three month loan deal. He  has slightly disappointing attributes but both my scout and a number of coaches say that he is a good league one player, so hopefully he can do well for us.

The next match saw us travel to 2nd bottom Stockport. I expected a win, they were in terrible form, I was hoping we could knock a few goals past them. It didn’t turn out like that, they took the lead, we conceded yet another goal from a corner. Once again the reaction was good and within seven minutes we were level, Smalley hit a defence splitting ball and Brandy stayed composed to slide it past the keeper. Just five minutes later and there was another goal, Kieran Lee fired brilliantly into the top corner from a tight angle. At 2-1 we continued to dominate and should have scored a couple more, we didn’t take our chances but in the end it didn’t matter, Stockport didn’t threaten and we comfortably held on.

The next match was against Millwall, but before the game a new player came to the club. He is Daniel Nardiello, when the opputunity came to sign this guy for just $50k I couldn’t resist. I think he can be a good player for us, he is different to the other strikers we’ve got.

Actually two signings came in before the Millwall game, besides Nardiello I got Gael Kakuta on loan from Chelsea. He is a good flair player who can cover for Taylor on the wing, as well as being very good in a central role.

So with those new players in our ranks it was onto the Millwall match, which was at home. We were on top right from the off, but we couldn’t break through and in the end it took an own goal from their goalkeeper to get us ahead. We continued to press looking for the killer goal, but it didn’t happen and we had to endure a nervous final few minutes, fortunately we managed to hold on.

The final game of January was another home tie, this time we welcomed Brentford to Boundary Park. They were struggling near the bottom and it showed, we were much better and deserved our big win. Brandy got the ball rolling, Abbott added a second before penalties from Sandrinho and Lee added gloss to the scoreline. All this was after Brentford went ahead early on, my players really are good at producing comebacks after going behind.

So there we are then, a very good month, which, coupled with Leeds’ poor form has seen us open up a six point lead at the top. More importantly, twelve points separate us from third place, I am now very confident we will go up, as long as nothing drastic happens.

Next month will see us play five games, if we can finish February with at least a ten point lead from third then I am sure we will be promoted.

We had time to make one more signing before the end of the transfer window. I am really pleased with this one, it’s Marco Verratti, an Italian wonderkid attacking midfielder. Here are his attributes:

They are very good for someone his age, don’t you think? I hope he can be our talisman for many years to come, hopefully in a higher league, even the Premier League. The best thing about the deal is that he only cost $240k, again, I don’t know where the board are getting the money from.

Well that’s all for January, thanks for reading.