Oldham November 2010

Hello everyone, welcome back to my story with Oldham! We have started well in the Championship, at the end of October we were sitting in 2nd place, one point behind the leaders Wigan.

We start the month with a home tie against Derby, they were in 17th place, so I was confident of a win. The match was a poor one, we dominated but Derby’s defence held firm. The match was drifting away into a disappointing draw when, in the 86th minute, Febian Brandy nipped past a defender and placed the ball into the bottom corner. It sealed the win for us, we hadn’t played very well, but I guess that we deserved the victory in the end. In the game Matthew Briggs broke his arm, he will be out for around a month, it’s a blow to us, he has been a very consistent player so far.

Next up we had a tricky game against Leicester, they have some good players despite being near the foot of the table. However we got off to a great start in just the third minute, Brandy ran onto a through ball, cut past a defender and smashed it in, we were one up. Leicester were playing well though, and they equalised when Krisztian Nemeth’s shot took a deflection and trickled in. After that the match was even, I hoped that we could nick a winner, but it wasn’t to be. Another injury was picked up, this time it was Pawel Abbott will be out for around ten days with his injury.

The next match was sure to be tough, we were away at Middlesbrough, one of the best teams in the division. They were all over us at the start of the match, but they wasted a lot of possession by taking lots of long shots that sailed over. We went ahead completely out of the blue, Marco Verratti hammered in a free kick from 30 yards. It was his first goal of the season, to go with all those assists, and just six minutes later he had the perfect chance for his second. Julian Gray was pushed and Verratti tucked home his second from the spot. That meant that we went in two goals up, despite having far less possession and shots. In fact, the two goals were our only to efforts on goal in the first half. The second half continued in much the same way, but despite all their pressure, Middlesbrough only created one clear chance, and we killed the game off on the counter attack when Brandy’s pace allowed him to get away and he finished to seal a great win for us. Looking at the match stats Middlesbrough had 21 shots to our 4, but all of ours were on target, whereas they wasted many of theirs. Yet another injury occurred, Julian Gray got strained knee ligaments and he’ll be out for 8 weeks, yet another blow.

The next game was also going to be difficult, a strong Sheffield United side was coming to Boundary Park. The first half was quite boring, they had more shots but most of them were from range. In the 50th minute we went ahead, Marco Verratti got his third in two games, he smashed in another free kick from miles out. Sheff Utd then started to press, but they lacked the creativity to carve us open, and we held on for a good win.

After that game, we had another coming up very quickly, just three days later Plymouth visited us. We got off to a good start, in the 12th minute Tomas Pekhart stole it off a defender and hammered into the bottom corner. We weren’t ahead for very long though, it was level after 27 minutes, a wonder goal from a long way out. However, we got a second when Kieran Lee’scross was slotted in by Pekhart for his second. It was 2-1 and that’s how the game finished, despite some nervy last few minutes when Plymouth began to put the pressure on. Once again someone got injured, this time it was Elliot Omuzusi, he will be out for around a week with a gashed arm.

Another signing was made after the Plymouth game, it’s former Reading winger Seol Ki-Hyeon. He has good experience and is very versatile, so he can cover on both wings as well as behind the strikers or even up front. I was pleased to get him on a free transfer.

We had one more game to play, we were travelling to Peterborough, a good side with some tricky forwards. We played very poorly and in the 68th minute we found ourselves 2-0 down. I brought on Sandrinho for Dani Fragoso and he immediately contributed, sliding a ball through for Chris Taylor, who slotted in to give us some hope. We pushed on desperately for an equaliser, and deep in stoppage time Sandrinho played in Brandy with a fantastic ball, and he kept his composure to grab a point for us.

After a pretty good month, when we went unbeaten, we have climbed into first place following Wigan’s poor form. I think we now have a great chance of going up, if we have a good Christmas period then we’ll be in a great position.

Next month will see us play six games, including tough matches against Wigan, Fulham and Portsmouth, hopefully we can keep picking up points.

That’s all for now then friends, thanks for reading!