Sloshed Joe

I think Fondop is unlucky not to get a new deal. Top scorer last season & second top scorer this season.

He’s a victim of the circumstances though, with all the other strikers still in contract, it would be madness to offer him a deal at this stage.

Same with Harrison. No point in even negotiating a new deal with him, given we have so many CBs still under contract.

So often we go into a new season with no squad continuity and now we’re in the opposite position, but we’ve snookered ourselves. Bringing in a new manager who didn’t fancy all of our new signings has caused this problem. In hindsight, sticking with Thommo, who brought all these players in might’ve been the best play.

11 hours ago, astottie said:

Apologies if this is a live link and it changes but basically Joe Nuttal was quicker and more determined than anyone else. And he'd already had one ruled out.

It’s typical Latics that we send an unwanted National League striker on loan to League One and he bags a couple and gets a couple of assists.

And in return we get a League One striker in on loan (Dallas) and he does the square root of fuck all - in a league that he bagged for fun last season.

3 hours ago, oafc1955 said:

Only 7 appearances for Barrow this season…if he’s a mate of Conlon he probably wouldn’t come anywhere near BP!

Wiki is wrong by stating 7 appearances. He made over 30 appearances for Barrow this season - but with a lot of them as a sub in the last 20 mins of games.

2 hours ago, Mr Banks, Zone 3 said:

I wonder where this leaves them for next season though. Assuming the position with the ground stays the same, who's going to want to play for a team who literally aren't playing for anything. I feel really sorry for their fans.

I think the permissions Gateshead needed got sorted, just not by the deadline required. So they should be fine the next time they are in promotion contention.

Add to the Mellon list 

‘Moaned we didn’t have a winger. Signed a winger. Then never played the winger or had him on the bench’

Nothing to lose by playing Walker. Also, where has another of his signings Hammond been for the last 2 games?

Apologies if it’s already been posted, but does anyone know what our longest run of games is without a victory? 10 games and counting must be one of the longest in recent years…?

Guaranteed to finish above Rochdale. Yayyy!! Well done lads.

I’d suggest if we need a goal then taking off one of the 5 centre backs might give us a better chance. Then again, they’re doing such a good job of keeping us solid and tight at the back, might as well keep them on.

This league is mad. There are so many shit stats to pick out of our season (like only 6 home league wins, only 1 league goal from a defender etc)

But then other stats would suggest we’re not far away.

Only 2 league defeats more than run away leaders Chesterfield.

Same amount of defeats as 2nd place chasers Barnet.

Less defeats than play-off contenders Altrincham, Gateshead & Halifax.

5 less defeats than play-off hopefuls Aldershot.

We’ve thrown away a brilliant opportunity this season to have a stab at the play-offs. It was absolutely there for us and we blew it

31 minutes ago, Wardie said:

It's impossible to do that but, the most annoyingly galling, infuriating and the biggest slap in the face is the players not giving a fuck about the fans. 

I know. I really want there to be a good relationship between the players and the fans. We should be a great club to play for given the support & the passion. The attitude & body language from most of the players towards the supporters is really poor.

Surely they can understand the frustrations. We’ve just blown a chance of reaching the play-offs, we as Oldham fans haven’t been in the play-offs for nearly 20 years. As players, they will have achieved success elsewhere in recent years but surely they can’t be ignorant to the fact that Oldham fans have had no success and are desperate for it. That should make them try harder and show empathy, not tell us to fuck off.

The Hudson reaction towards Bradley Knowles is a disgrace.

Our home form has been a mystery all season. Barely played well in any one match.

But equally frustrating is the downturn in away form. That looked like being the difference maker under Mellon. We looked like we had that sussed and have been dangerous away for a large part of the season. It does seem to coincide with Norwood returning but then he was part of many good away wins prior to his injury.

Really frustrating last quarter of the season.

Willoughby has scored for Ayr

Tollitt has scored for Chester

4 minutes ago, IanMarshall's Mullet said:

Halifax losing 0-2 at the moment......

IF we can win our last 3 games we’d finish on 70 points. If Halifax lose today & we beat them as well, they’d have to win both remaining games to finish on 72.

Aldershot can get to 74 points if they win 3 remaining games.

Let’s just win these games and see where it takes us!!

Some stoopid scout / head of recruitment probably watched Sheff Utd’s U21s last week and reported back that the statsbomb numbers on Blades’ right back were really impressive. But he only plays well in meaningless fixtures.

Oxford have won the same amount of home league games as us (6). Only York & Kiddy have won less. Let’s hope we can finish the season on a high and end with a bit of optimism after this awful run. Would be great to get a thumping win at Boundary Park next weekend, after what has been relegation home form all season.

I understand all the arguments for reality v expectations. The reality is that we are not that far away from a team that could achieve the playoffs. Turn a couple of the numerous draws into scruffy wins and we’d be in the top 7. And finishing in the play-offs is what the majority of us expected.

But it’s also true that our home record this season is abysmal. 6 wins at home in the National League. There are only two teams in the division who have won less home games. Even with the culture shock of our first non league season and the transition from AL to Frank, we managed to win 11 home games in 2022/23. I’m not expecting us to take the division by storm, but anything resembling a respectable home record would see us where we wanted to be this season.

Credit to Mellon for the good run away run this season, it’s a shame I can only make games at BP. 

14 hours ago, oafc1955 said:

It’s just dawned on me that we could actually be playing against Curzon Ashton in a competitive league fixture!!

Have you watched us recently? What makes you think it’d be competitive…?

16 hours ago, mcfluff1985 said:

Said it before, I'll say it again. Loads of teams have a combo in midfield where ones job is to win the ball and do all the running and the others to be creative. That was the Fane and Byrne combo. Works throughout the pyramid if you get the right chemistry in there

Sheridan & Carlton Palmer

8 hours ago, oafcmetty said:

Nonsense

You can see why people feel like this though, given the huge expectation to be one of the favourites to win the league, and all the attacking talent we were purring over before the season started.

The majority of the fanbase only see the home games. If you’d told me that we’d only win 6 league games out of 22 at Boundary Park (and get embarrassed at home in the FA Trophy by Hendon and Mickleover) then I’d be worried that this WAS a relegation season.

Cheltenhams official report doesn’t describe it as one to remember…

’Late consolation as Nuttall fumbles it home from close range’ 

3 hours ago, AndyB2 said:

Without his goals. 
 

as in with him in the team, we would be 12th if he hadn’t scored as many goals. 
 

yes I accept that. 
 

but we are 9th, not 4th partly because he is in the team.

 

I don’t expect you to understand that but have a go chap. 

I understand what you are trying to say. But we were 4th only a month or so ago. With Sheron regularly playing in midfield (and taking into account Unsworth’s awful start)

We all know that, even with the squad imbalance, play off’s were extremely achieveable. Our form since February has been horrendous. That’s a collective problem, not just on Sheron.

I agree that an upgrade would benefit our starting eleven. But an Oldham team containing Sheron in midfield next season should be very much capable of earning a top 7 finish.

37 minutes ago, yarddog73 said:

His presser for the Dale game is grim, fucking hell he goes on about the squads deficiencies again and that anyone with a football brain can see its shortcomings yet he's had opportunity to bring in his own players already and now he talks of having to wheel and deal to bring more in, if we start next season with a similar midfield and lopsided defence and no pace on the flanks we might as well give up now.

 

Also strangely  harps on about the winless run and how we've played all the top teams recently, wow I didn't know we'd become a run of the mill NL club overnight and so accepting of our mediocrity, it's no wonder we can't beat the big clubs like Dagenham, Fylde and Aldershot when we see them as big clubs.

 

Is it any wonder the players have given up after they've listened to the drivel all week long.

 

Finally why is Reid training day in day out with the first team yet we can't even get him in a matchday squad, probably the only forward player we have left with any type of pace and he's scored about one a game whist he's been in the team. If he's not going to play again why the fuck is he training with us, fucking stupid decision given he's hardly going to be great to have around from a team moral point of view.

Yean it’s a really disappointing interview. Says he doesn’t want to make excuses, but just makes excuses. Talks about inheriting the players and says ‘Oldham’ a lot, rather than ‘we’. Eludes to Walker & Sachdev not being ready for the team or system (not what he said in the articles when we announced their signings where he was bigging them up)

Sounded low energy and pessimistic. Listing the top teams we’ve played recently like Bromley was just embarrassing. What about Fylde, Kiddy & Dagenham? Are they top teams as well - coz we couldn’t beat them on this tough run. What about Chesterfield losing to Dorking, York, Kiddy & Halifax. Doesn’t that put our performance against them into perspective?

Good experiences managers should be able to inherit an imperfect squad and make a difference without making wholesale changes. We’ve seen Phil Brown & Steve Evans do it. Southend have had to work with what they’ve got. Gateshead have lost a manager and half a team but are still competitive. I’d like Melon to take more ownership of the situation because there’s enough there to be performing better than we are.

8 minutes ago, Hurtman said:

If Mellon is the answer, I am not sure what the question is

 

His pre-match on TNT was shambolic

Why what did he say in this interview?

21 minutes ago, nzlatic said:

I’ll add to this - if mentality and coping with pressure and expectation is a problem, then we need to bring in a top sports psychologist as well. 

On that point, while we’re scrambling round for reasons that it’s all turned to shit recently, d’ya reckon there’s been any impact on the squad ‘alchemy’ since Mick Rathbone left the club in January…?

5 minutes ago, Dickie Down said:

Their right back, Hosannah, on a short term contract to the end of the season.

If we sign him, what chant would we sing?