Oldham Story — January 2012

Hello everyone, welcome back to my Oldham story, and once again, sorry for the delay, my illness came back earlier in the week, but it’s gone for good now, so here’s the story. At the end of 2011 we had progressed well in our first Premier League season, we were 3rd in the league, but we had some tough games in January, let’s see if we could stay there.

Our first game of the new year was going to be a tough one, we travelled to Stamford Bridge to face Chelsea and we had to do it without our star striker, Guilherme, he picked up an injury before the game that would keep him out for around a week. Chelsea have struggled a bit this season but are still a quality side. They battered us all game, and went ahead in the 27th minute through Luis Suarez. I expected that to be the cue for the floodgates to open, that didn’t happen though, Chelsea were very wasteful with their finishing, and we defended resolutely too. I felt we had a chance as long as the scoreline remained 1-0, and it did, and we got our chance. With just our second attack of the game we rescued a point, Jo crossed for Adeilson, who rose highest to power in a header and earn us a point. If you look at the match stats you can see that Chelsea were all over us, but I don’t care, it was an important point picked up for us.

Next up we faced Stoke at home, they were down in the relegation places, I expected a win after the good result against Chelsea. It turned out to be a very frustrating day for us, we were the better team and had numerous chances, including 6 clear chances and we failed to put just one of them away. Without the injured Guilherme we really struggled up front, and Stoke punished us in the last minute, Tuncay nicking all three points for them, it was a bitter disappointment.

Things weren’t going to get any easier in the next game, we had an FA Cup Third Round Replay against Arsenal at Boundary Park. The first game 0-0 at the Emirates back in December, I felt we had a chance if we played to our potential. It wasn’t a good game at all to be honest, both sides had just 1 shot on target each, it was a very poor game, and I wasn’t surprised when it went to penalties. I wasn’t too confident as we were missing most of our best penalty takers, fortunately Arsenal didn’t have too many good ones either. Andrew Driver missed for us, but Theo Walcott and Gael Clichy did the same for the Gunners, we had won! I was very pleased, we had dumped out a giant side in just the third round, and we had a very winnable tie against Ipswich in the next round.

It was back to the Premier League for the next game, we were travelling to Wolves. We played poorly again, Wolves didn’t create much but were the better side, they went ahead in the 77th minute through David Jones. I thought it was going to be another defeat for us, but the returning Guilherme rescued us again, in the 91st minute he smashed one in to give us the share of the points. This stretched our run without winning to five games in the league, a run that started in December, that was pretty worrying for us.

We faced Ipswich in the next game, as a result of our great penalty win against Arsenal, Ipswich are top of the Championship, but I was still confident we could progress. Finally we looked genuinely threatening in the final third, we played much better in this game, but to Ipswich’s credit they put up a good fight. We went ahead in the 3rd minute, Jo finally scored just his second goal since joining in August. He liked that so he did it again just 6 minutes later, we were 2-0 up. We were all over them at this point, and Kieran Lee hammered in a third after just 17 minutes. It was 4-0 just before half time, Jo completed a fine hat trick with a good header. I hoped for more goals after the break, but Ipswich looked much better after half time and even pulled two goals back near the end, thankfully it was too little, too late, and we were through to the next round.

We faced Sunderland in the next game, we were trying to get our first league win of the year, I was becoming very concerned with our league form. It seems the players were also desperate for a league win, they produced a good display, we battered Sunderland and looked like the home side for much of the game. I thought it was going to be another frustrating day, but in the 92nd minute Pablo Hernandez  went down in the box. The ref pointed to the spot and Marco Verratti kept his cool to give us all three points.

The last game of the month was going to be very tough, second place Tottenham were coming to Boundary Park. We were on a bit of a high after finally getting a league win, and we looked confident during the game. We got off to a great start, in just the 8th minute Lucas fired us into the lead. After that the match became fairly even and quite boring, we had the better chances and we had someone to put one away, Guilherme slid in one-on-one after being put clean through. Tottenham hit back soon after through Aaron Lennon, and we spent the final minutes under some pressure. We defended strongly though, and we held on for a valuable three points.

That finishes the matches in January then, we are still third, I think we have a good chance of getting a Champions League spot now, as long as we have a decent finish to the season.

We have a tough schedule ahead of us in February, we’ll have to play some good sides, hopefully we can keep picking up wins.

Of course, it was January, so, of course, there were transfers both in and out of the club. Here are the players who departed in January:

I said in the last post that I would sell Martyn Waghorn, and we did, he left for Hearts for £1.7m. I wasn’t planning to sell Rafinha, but Inter came in with an offer I couldn’t refuse, so he departed. Darren Ward is a promising left winger and I decided to give him some match experience, and Bartosz Bialokowski was complaining about a lack of first team football, so he moved on.

Of course I had to find replacements for Rafinha and Waghorn, and I am very pleased with the signing of Micah Richards. I paid £19.75m for the England right back, he has incredible physical attributes, he really is a good player. As he can also cover at centre back, so I think he’s good value for money.

I had to wait quite a while to find a replacement for Waghorn, however, we managed to secure a deal for Matias Suarez in the final days of the window. He is far better than Waghorn, with good pace and dribbling skills, he should be a good backup for Guilherme.

One more player was signed, Emiliano Viola wasn’t offered a new contract by Independiente, so I jumped at the chance to snap him up. He has high potential so hopefully will develop into a very good player. He has plenty of time on his hands at just 16, so I’m looking forward to seeing how he’ll develop.

I am going away on Saturday until Tuesday, so there won’t be any posts from me until the end of next week.

Ok then folks, that’s all for now, thanks for reading!