Oldham Story — February 2012

Hello everyone, welcome back to another update of my Oldham story! At the end of January we were continuing to do well in the league, we were in third place, just ahead of Tottenham and Everton. Now, let’s see if we could stay there.

We started the month with a home tie, West Brom were travelling to Boundary Park. They were down in 16th place and low on confidence, so I expected a win. We were on top from the first minute, it took us until the 37th minute to break them down, but break them down we did, Micah Richards smashed in an unexpected goal, his first for the club, to give us the lead. Just 6 minutes later we sealed the game, Pablo Hernandez was the scorer with a placed shot. After that the game settled down, West Brom rarely threatened our goal, in the end the victory was a comfortable one for us.

We faced a tougher game next, we travelled to Goodison Park to face Everton, who were in 5th place. We didn’t play very well in this game, Everton were on top for most of the match and deservedly took the lead in the 35th minute. We only created a couple of noteworthy chances, and the game was all but over when Everton scored a second in the 61st minute. We woke up a little after that, and we did hit back, Dani Fragoso’s shot was deflected to give him his first  goal for the club. It was too late though, that goal came in the last minute, we had lost.

We had another difficult match coming up, we had to face Liverpool at Anfield, for our FA Cup 5th Round match. I didn’t expect a win, particularly as we were missing both Marco Verratti and Nicolas Otamendi through injury, as well as Andrew Driver, who got injured in January, and was still out. Sure enough we struggled throughout the game, especially after Daniel Agger had given them the lead. The game was all over when Slyan Ebanks Blake got a second goal, but we did put up quite a spirited fight, and we should have got at least one goal, considering that we had 3 clear chances, I was disappointed with that.

So we were out of the FA Cup, and things didn’t get any easier for the next game, Man Utd were coming to Boundary Park. My assistant said before the game that Man Utd tended to struggle against teams with a reputation like ours, and that became apparent when the game started. We benefited from them (for some reason, I’m not quite sure why) resting both Wayne Rooney and Franck Ribery, which meant that they started with Danny Welbeck and Febian Brandy up front. The game wasn’t a good one, with no clear chances created at all, but we took the lead when Dani Fragoso smashed in from long range. Just 4 minutes later things got even better for us, Micah Richards got another goal this month, this time it was a header from a corner. After that the game became more even, I was surprised that United didn’t get at least one goal back, but a lot of their efforts were from range and didn’t trouble German Lux much. We held on for a very good win, it was another big scalp for us.

International Management

For some time now I have been looking for an international job. In the past year or so I’ve put in applications to become manager of Norway, Serbia, Bosnia, Brazil, France and Wales. All have been unsuccessful, obviously. After the Man Utd game the jobs of Nigeria and Cameroon suddenly became vacant. I applied for both, and Nigeria came back quickly with an offer.

I accpeted, and I will now divide my time between Oldham and the African country. The expectations are to qualify easily for the 2014 World Cup, something I think we should achieve, considering we are in a group with Burundi, Chad and Sudan.

We had a friendly to play just two days after my appointment, against Qatar. Most of the best Nigerian players weren’t in the squad, which baffled me (the squad was chosen before I became manager). We were still far too strong for Qatar, goals from Ikechukwu Uche, two from Michael Eneramo and one from 19 year old regen Alex Ajayi. It was a satisfying win in my first game in charge, a nice way to start my career in international management.

We had one more game to play with Oldham this month, a trip to Bristol City. We were the better side for most of the match, it was really frustrating up until the 71st minute, when Matias Suarez pounced on a rebound to give us the lead. We switched off after that and made a costly mistake, Marvin Elliot snatched a point for them in the 78th minute, it was quite a frustrating day for us.

We are still 3rd after February, which is mainly due to the poor form of Tottenham and Everton. I think we now have a very good chance of achieving a Champions League spot, as we only have 10 games left.

Next month will see us play one very tough game against Man City, but apart from that it’s not too difficult a month, hopefully we can really consolidate our position in March.

Just to let you know, I’m going away again tomorrow and won’t be back until Wednesday, so once again there won’t be any posts from me for about a week.

That’s all the folks, have a good weekend and thanks for reading!