Oldham Story — October 2012

Hello everyone, welcome to another post on my Oldham story. We didn’t get off to a great start, we had to play a lot of very good teams, and as a result we were a bit behind. So, we had some catching up to do this month, let’s see how we got on.

The first game of the month was at home, in the Champions League, against Sporting CP. The game was very tight, just as I expected it to be. A draw would have been a fair result, and I was just thinking it was going to end level when Nicolas Otamendi popped up and thumped home a header from a corner. Sporting really began to press in the final minutes, but we were lucky, they missed a huge chance in the last minute, and we nicked a valuable 3 points, our first ever win in the Champions League!

We stayed at Boundary Park for the next match, the visitors were 9th placed Newcastle. We started the game on the front foot, we dominated the first half be we couldn’t break through. We had to wait until the 54th minute to get in front, but a fine goal it was, Marco Verratti hammered the ball home. We got a second just 3 minutes later, and it was that man Verratti again. If you saw Andres Iniesta’s goal for Spain against Chile, then it was very similar to that, Guilherme played David Villa’s roll with the lay off, and Verratti applied the cool finish. 2-0 would probably have been a fair result, but we added an extra goal, Ikechukwu Uche was the man who did that.

We travelled away for the next match, and it was sure to be tough, we had to go to Stamford Bridge to face Chelsea. The match wasn’t a very good one, Chelsea had a lot of pressure, they pushed us back and back, but we held firm. In the 65th minute we delivered the knockout blow, a corner wasn’t cleared and Guilherme was first to the ball to poke home 1-0! The pressure increased on our goal as the match entered it’s final stages, Chelsea were easily on top, but to our immense credit they never managed to create a clear cut chance. They couldn’t produce anything special, and we nicked all three points!

It was back to Boundary Park for the next game, and it was back to the Champions League, Villarreal were the visitors for a crucial tie. They are a good team, and in the opening stages they proved that, they made some good chances, but fortunately they didn’t take them. In the 24th minute we changed the game, Andrew Driver with a clinical finish from a good move. After that our confidence was restored, we began to really dominate and I was hoping we could press home our advantage. We did just that, Driver popped up again and it was 2-0! The match continued in the same way for much of the second half, and we got a 3rd when Guiseppe Rossi put into his own net from a corner. That seemed to knock the stuffing out of the Spanish side, the match sort of fizzled out but it was a really good victory for us.

As a result of that victory the group table now looks quite good, I’d say we have a decent chance of progressing now.

It was back to the Premier League after that game, this time we travelled to struggling Sunderland. They were in 17th place despite winning their last game 6-0, which seemed a bit strange. They still didn’t look very confident, but I think the final scoreline of 3-0 was a little harsh on them. It was still a comfortable victory though, after Guilherme opened the scoring in just the 2nd minute their wasn’t much of a challenge from Sunderland. We extended the lead when Micah Richards headed in from a corner, and it was all over when Martin Caceres also nodded in from a dead ball situation.

That was our last league game of the month, a very successful one for us, that run of victories has pushed us up into 4th, and we have a game in hand over Arsenal.

We still had one more game to play, this time it was the League Cup that drew our attentions. I fielded a weakened side against League One outfit Gillingham. I was rewarded with a fine performance, we looked fluid going forward, a particularly fine display from Jo easily won the match for us.

That concludes my activity with Oldham for October. We had a really good run this month, but we have a tough schedule in November, especially towards the end of the month were we will have to play 4 games in 10 days.

I also had one game with Nigeria in October. It was against Chad, the team that was bottom of the group. I expected a good win and that’s just what I got, another good performance from the Super Eagles resulted in a 6-0 win.

That means that we finish the group as clear winners, we picked up the maximum of 18 points, with a goal difference of +18 to go with it.

We are through to the next round then, and we will battle it out with Burkina Faso, Egypt and Gabon for top spot and qualification for the world cup. I am confident that we will go through, hopefully we will be at the World Cup 2014!

That’s all for October folks, thanks for reading!