Oldham Post Match

[STUHILL]

Another point gained and the unbeaten run preserved. Fair enough in my eyes considering we ran up against a pretty combative and efficient Oldham side. If Taylor hadn't laid on the theatrics in the first half, he probably wouldn't have won that penalty in the second.

I think a few of the younger players exposed a lack of composure after the sending off, but in the entire history of professional football, that sort of performance against 10 men is hardly unknown.

I can't do anything for the haters on the forum and their hysterical over-reaction to dropping two points. Do a Joe Kinnear; see if I care.

Moving slightly up the food chain, those grumbling about us already looking rather exposed in terms of the rigours Championship football will probably not have stopped to think that these thoughts are not a millions miles away from those of NP either. It's pretty obvious who's likely to cut it in the Championship - I would imagine there will be wholesale changes over the summer and I don't think that autopromotion will hide this fact.

Top post mate!

[carterfox90]

laughable .....................& the joke was on us .......comedian of the night ....windass

[hesapeepingtom]

just cause we are 11 points clear at the top doesnt mean we cant be angry about that performance! look at the bigger picture we need 2 new strikers for sure cause howard and fryatt wont be half as good in the championship that is already proven fact as weve seen what they can do in there!

yes im happy about how well we have done this season,but just shows we need a lot of new players if we are to do well in the championship next season.

[dandannieldanok]

Was a poor game from our point of view, Oakley was correct in his RL interview after the game that we didn't get it down and play. Oldham looked more assured in possession than us but at least we did create chances unlike the Brighton game. Howard lost the aerial battle against their centre-halves and that clearly reduced our attacking options considerably, Fryatt was completely off-colour again. We should also count ourselves very lucky on the penalty front, from where I was sitting Morrison clearly made contact and brought down the attacker. Overall a disappointing performance but at least we didn't lose.

[Tilley]

just cause we are 11 points clear at the top doesnt mean we cant be angry about that performance! look at the bigger picture we need 2 new strikers for sure cause howard and fryatt wont be half as good in the championship that is already proven fact as weve seen what they can do in there!

yes im happy about how well we have done this season,but just shows we need a lot of new players if we are to do well in the championship next season.

I agree we need a striker or two.

Pearson obviously feels Chambers isn't ready yet & Hayles & Dickov aren't the bloody answer.

[RowlattsFox]

We got lucky with the Oldham penalty incident, but we probably should have had another penalty as well for the handball, I can't believe no-one really appealed for that, apart from me. Looked like it might have been on its way in too.

[taffyfox]

Come on guys, its FOOTBALL!!

No team have any right to win any game and fair play to Oldham for their work rate.

To be honest, I have not liked the 'experts' on TV saying how good we are and all this talk of breaking the points record. Hopefully it is a kick up the back side and makes the whole club realise there is still a lot of hard work to do.

BUT....to BOO a side that is 11 points clear at the top Come on City Fans, get a grip. We need to keep getting behind these young lads.

Living in South Wales and still (trying) to play on Saturdays I dont get to see that many games but I must say that it is much better at AWAY games than going to the Walkers. There are pockets of fans singing allaround the Kop an in L1.

Is there any way that all these pockets can get together to generate some constant noise, even when we are going through a dodgy 10 minutes.

[marbelladave]

Poor performance in an awful game, one of a handful of games that we have fooked up this season.

Put it behind us and move on by all means but FFS learn the lessons that are there for all to see!

If Howard and Fryatt in a 4-4-2 aren't doing the job, we need to change tactics, but we don't/can't.

The Oakley/King pairing is fragile defensively, way too much space in front of the center of our back 4.

Under pressure our defenders, particularly (but not only) our center backs revert to hoofball.

Our set pieces are still shit.

We have some time off, go and work on it.

[breadandcheese]

We had the chances today, we just didn't take them, but make no mistake Oldham were a good well organised team. They've given us two good games this season and could have nicked it yesterday. We've just taken 7 points from 9, which is bl**dy good form.

MOTM goes to Morrison for me. He looked commanding throughout. Hobbs looked shaky, especially when Taylor cut inside from the right and ran at him. Mattock for me also had a bad game, with Taylor getting the better of him too.

Midfield didn't have one of it's strongest games, which meant we lacked the composure necessary to play against 10 men. I was hoping for more from Cleverley today, but he just didn't perform today as we would have hoped. We certainly played into Oldham's hands with the punts into the box when playing 10 men.

Fryatt unfortunately was outfoxed by a clever pro. Windass was playing games shouting at him that he'd miss, which Matty duly obliged. He should have had more composure, he didn't. He will learn for next time.

Howard was trying to feed off the longballs but Oldham's centre-backs put in a good show.

Not the best day at the office, but unbeaten in 17, 7 points from last 9. Bring on the next game.

[Maybes]

Not sure I can be arsed to read through the this thread. No doubt we've got the usually idiots spouting how shite we are and that a point against a tiny club like Oldham isn't good enough etc.

At the end of the day its a point more towards promotion.

[Lovejoy]

Look on the bright side:

2 games and no Chelsea Dagger !

[Alf Bentley]

Easy to forget that this is a very young side: 7 out of 11 who started aged 21 or under, I think, plus even Fryatt is only about 22. Don't know about you, but I was prone to immaturity and self-doubt well beyond that age.

The lack of experience showed a bit yesterday: trying to pass our way through a well-organised and committed defence, rather than play the percentages by taking long shots and firing in crosses against Windass. As captain and an experienced player, Oakley should've sorted that out.

Also, contrast Fryatt allowing the old pro Windass to put him off his penalty with Howard at Northampton, when there was also a delay in the kick being taken - Howard just picked up the ball and strode around on the far edge of the area, keeping his concentration.

Can't complain too much, though, after the way that the season has gone so far. Hopefully Pearson will be talking them through it this week, ensuring that lessons are learned and, heads cleared, back with a good performance next week.

Based on the 2 matches this season, I can also see Oldham staying in the play-off positions, if they don't get too many injuries. Well-organised, v. strong central defence, physical but can play a bit - and Taylor is a class act at this level.

[Candidcamera]

Thracian we are all entitled to our opinions and you have been mightily disappointed with the game but City would have won it in the second half but for the penalty and sending off. The Oldham players were close to physical bullies. The chances of us surviving without bad injuries was worrying. They played as if it was their cup final and the referee was too lenient. Players like Cleverley need some protection and the way Gilbert pulled out of the tackle that Morrision took didn't surprise me.

I know it looked a shambles and we were lucky to not lose at the end but I would not want to get this match taken out of context with the great efforts shown by the team. Again if anything we tried too hard and our passing game was all wrong. The same old fault as well if Fryatt doesn't score in these backs to the wall games we are lacking any other stiker.

[BoneDog]

Fcuk off and support another team if you don't approve.

Approve of what?

Are you not allowed to be disappointed with a shit performance anymore? As long as I see 100% effort from the players I am happy, but I didn't see that yesterday. I walked away from the walkers totally gutted with what I'd seen and no-one can tell me I aint allowed to talk about it. It was crap

[Koke]

Easy to forget that this is a very young side: 7 out of 11 who started aged 21 or under, I think, plus even Fryatt is only about 22. Don't know about you, but I was prone to immaturity and self-doubt well beyond that age.

The lack of experience showed a bit yesterday: trying to pass our way through a well-organised and committed defence, rather than play the percentages by taking long shots and firing in crosses against Windass. As captain and an experienced player, Oakley should've sorted that out.

Also, contrast Fryatt allowing the old pro Windass to put him off his penalty with Howard at Northampton, when there was also a delay in the kick being taken - Howard just picked up the ball and strode around on the far edge of the area, keeping his concentration.

Can't complain too much, though, after the way that the season has gone so far. Hopefully Pearson will be talking them through it this week, ensuring that lessons are learned and, heads cleared, back with a good performance next week.

Based on the 2 matches this season, I can also see Oldham staying in the play-off positions, if they don't get too many injuries. Well-organised, v. strong central defence, physical but can play a bit - and Taylor is a class act at this level.

That's a very good point about the team's average age. I never looked at it like that. Our back line has an average age of 19.5.

Martin - 22

Gillbert - 21

Hobbs - 19

Morrison - 20

Mattock - 18

Cleverley - 20

Oakley - 31

King - 21

Dyer - 26

Fryatat - 22

Howard - 32

[BoneDog]

Look on the bright side:

2 games and no Chelsea Dagger !

Agreed. The 1 good point about the game

[Corky]

Was a poor match, the penalty miss was crucial but I felt a win for us would've been harsh on Oldham, who kept attacking with ten men and could've nicked it.

Martin was our best player, made some vital saves and another clean sheet for him (9 goals conceded in 16 home matches- fantastic) and I think a draw was a fair result.

Hope for a much better performance against Swindon next week.

[Lillehamring]

Was a poor match, the penalty miss was crucial but I felt a win for us would've been harsh on Oldham, who kept attacking with ten men and could've nicked it.

Martin was our best player, made some vital saves and another clean sheet for him (9 goals conceded in 16 home matches- fantastic) and I think a draw was a fair result.

Hope for a much better performance against Swindon next week.

i'm inclined to think that if we had scored either the penalty or howards post earlier oldham wouldn't have been so deserving, the way we have been playing at the moment if we'd scored first our game would have opened up and confidence would have been as high as usual, and perhaps oldham might have started worrying a bit, certainly they would have given us more space to attack in....

but it's not even worth thinking about, like the brighton game, we still could have won this, regardless of how aimless we played at times... the trouble with the game was that so much happened in the 2nd half, it's easy to forget that we played some ok footy in the first half, nothing special for sure, we were content in a low gear. even after the break we came out strongly and played some nice footy, and then it was all about windass, and only then did things start getting dodgy,

but even then we weren't just hoofing it, as some seem to remember, i can clearly remember cleverly and king trying a few things, but what tended to happen was that they found no way through a tough defensively set oldham, and ended up playing it back to hobbs and morrison - who would tend to then hoof it.

certainly not the end of the road, and certainly not as bad as some people choose to remember it.

[Frenzied]

i'm inclined to think that if we had scored either the penalty or howards post earlier oldham wouldn't have been so deserving, the way we have been playing at the moment if we'd scored first our game would have opened up and confidence would have been as high as usual, and perhaps oldham might have started worrying a bit, certainly they would have given us more space to attack in....

but it's not even worth thinking about, like the brighton game, we still could have won this, regardless of how aimless we played at times... the trouble with the game was that so much happened in the 2nd half, it's easy to forget that we played some ok footy in the first half, nothing special for sure, we were content in a low gear. even after the break we came out strongly and played some nice footy, and then it was all about windass, and only then did things start getting dodgy,

but even then we weren't just hoofing it, as some seem to remember, i can clearly remember cleverly and king trying a few things, but what tended to happen was that they found no way through a tough defensively set oldham, and ended up playing it back to hobbs and morrison - who would tend to then hoof it.

certainly not the end of the road, and certainly not as bad as some people choose to remember it.

I have to agree with pretty much all of that. I'd add though that playing against 10 men is almost always never easy, unless you are already a goal or two up. I actually think we would have been more likely to win if they hadn't had a player sent off, as they wouldn't have packed their defence in the way that they did. At times it was like watching rugby, the amount of bodies in their 18 yard box.

Not a great performance nonetheless but nothing to worry about - it just shows we still need to make improvements, which I am confident that we are capable of. It also helps to bring those back down to earth that thought promotion was in the bag.

[Simi]

Didn't bother with the forum last night, seems I was right to avoid it, wish I had today as well.

I think our main downfall yesterday was that we let Oldham set up to defend. Time after time we'd get the ball in a promising area only to move it too slowly, therefore losing our advantage.

I was begging Mattock and Dyer to run at their right back, but they just stood and looked for a ball which ended up going backwards. With Howard in the box it would have made sense to hit the paintwork and get a ball over and really see what Windass was made of. Instead we pissed around with it on the edge of the area and let Oldham throw bodies at the ball. It was just the same play everytime that left us with the ball at our centre backs feet.

Fryatt had a poor game yesterday, people can defend him all they want. But yesterday, he was poor. After Howard scored a great penalty against Northampton I thought he might take it, but Fryatt despite being a little shaken from the tackle decided he wanted to add to his tally. Woops.

Very frustrating game, need to get back on track on Saturday.

[Lillehamring]

Didn't bother with the forum last night, seems I was right to avoid it, wish I had today as well.

I think our main downfall yesterday was that we let Oldham set up to defend. Time after time we'd get the ball in a promising area only to move it too slowly, therefore losing our advantage.

I was begging Mattock and Dyer to run at their right back, but they just stood and looked for a ball which ended up going backwards. With Howard in the box it would have made sense to hit the paintwork and get a ball over and really see what Windass was made of. Instead we pissed around with it on the edge of the area and let Oldham throw bodies at the ball. It was just the same play everytime that left us with the ball at our centre backs feet.

Fryatt had a poor game yesterday, people can defend him all they want. But yesterday, he was poor. After Howard scored a great penalty against Northampton I thought he might take it, but Fryatt despite being a little shaken from the tackle decided he wanted to add to his tally. Woops.

Very frustrating game, need to get back on track on Saturday.