In many ways this was as good as it can
get. We arrived at Boundary Park knowing
that if we performed we would win and we did precisely that.
Inside the first five minutes Pingu had a
chance that he snatched at and a brilliant move featuring Marsh, Rammell and Wrack culminated in Tarka heading
home a brilliant opening goal. The cross
from Wrack was inch perfect and the header that followed was equally as
accurate.
We controlled the half with some superb
movement and passing, never really
letting Oldham get foothold in the game.
Green had missed the game with a back strain and in the absence of the
also injured Viveash our centre back partnership was Ian Roper and Matthew
Gadsby(combined age 40). They also
happened to play very well.
A bit of luck arrived on the half hour as
Walker came for a ball he was never going to get and the subsequent header
looped over our crossbar. A rare mistake
in a pretty good sequence of games for Jimmy.
Oldham were quickly punished for missing the chance as another cracking
move saw Bjarne carry the ball 40 yards, a quick one two with Rammell and a
wide ball to Simpson who crossed for the immaculate Rambo to head home. A fantastic goal and the away crowd went
potty.
Thirty five minutes gone and all
we needed to do was not be silly. We
weren’t. In fact we missed a hatful of
chances the final score would have embarrassed the Latics if we had only
converted half of them. Otta (twice), Wrack,
Rammell and Keates had chances well saves by the impressive Oldham
keeper. He really was the difference
between respectability and a hammering.
In particular his save from Rammell was unbelievable.
We eased off,
understandably so following the previous Tuesday night’s exploits, and introduced Porter to sit in front of the
inexperienced centre defensive pairing.
He did a pretty food job of it.
Watson replaced the Otta and Evans returned for the again faultless
Marsh. Otta was the outstanding player
today and fully deserved the ovation he received on leaving the pitch.
The game ended without and real problems for
us to cope with and the points were ours.
This was without doubt the performance of a team that believes it is
going to win. The confidence around the
team is higher than for a long time and the only blip on an otherwise perfect
day was Fulham snatching second spot on goal difference after the buried
Burnley 4 - 0.
Bring on Stoke.