Oh Heck C-Beck

I must admit I hate the manager and player merry-go-round. I'd rather invest in youth and :censored: off the mercenaries even if it did lead to the possibility of going down as well as up. Were we not assessed recently and told we could increase our youth level if we had another pitch. Would not this be a better investment than more first team players in the long term? I know many people get hysterical when the relegation word is banded around but do people really prefer treading water and the huge turnover this involves in the feint hope we can fluke promotion over actually building a club we can be proud of? Players we can relate too? I don't think the problem was with LJ I just don't see a coherent strategy at the club for bringing through players into the first team. As it gets tougher at the top for English players to break through into the likes of Manchester United and Manchester City, surely we are ideally situated to offer local talents a genuine root into professional football.

Personally the "no comment" from the club makes me think he could well go.

if he causes problems he will open up space for others.

Haha get in this week has gone from happy clapping to doom and gloom and back to happy clapping agAin! Keeping everyone on their toes this season. Surely any team that puts a run together can cement a place in the play offs with everyone else beating each other.

I would love it if we invested all our money into developing players of our own which we could sell rather than signing a new set if journeymen every year but I doubt this would be popular among many fans as short term it would lead to a worse product on the pitch and possibly relegation.

I don't get to watch the games but I guess our players might not be strong enough mentally to play against those teams scrapping for safety?

Great photos, especially for those of us in exile. Made me quite sad & jealous that I can't go to the games though I have already told the mrs we will be back in the UK and I will be going all home and away games if we somehow get promoted! Come on LJ get it sorted!

Fair enough that video might not be permissible in a court of law for regarding proof of spot fixing, but I fail to see how he can sue the club about getting sacked when he is on video admitting to trying to spot fix. Would a restaurant not be able to sack an employee if they said they were pissing in the milk on video? Or do you need to forensically analyse the milk for this to happen?

The OAFC and Barry pantomime has been given an extended run I see! I wonder of there will be undercover operatives monitoring what people in the crowd are saying at the next home game. Be careful out there boys and girls!

Questions. What is the aim or purpose of the trust going forward? What are you going to do to engage, support and represent the views of the wider fanbase? Why should we take an interest in the trust going forward after what has gone on previously? Personally I feel one thing that holds the trust back is that Oldham fans are incredibly splintered in terms of views on how the club/trust should be run and taken forward. Are the trust going to try and take on board all this or is it going to just continue to be a mouth piece for those directly involved in running it?

If the club statement is to be believed the club seem to be more than happy to get rid of him too. I wonder if they were also stuck with him and were secretly hoping the trust would vote him out.

At the end of the day, I don't think you can stop him playing football, who are we to force extra punishment on criminals who have been released. It is a dangerous road to go down. Having said that, I think the club should have side stepped this one as it was always going to be a divisive and emotive subject and we are under no obligations to sign anybody. I hope it doesn't hurt the club too badly but I can only see this as a stupid and unnecessary move in our current situation.

Type Oldham Athletic into Google and click news and you can see all the excellent publicity we are getting already and he hasn't even signed yet.

I agree with your negative press bit and that is what worries me about this signing. The amount of outrage is clear from the petition that already has 6000 signatures. It is not about whether or not Hughes did something worse and we signed him. Whoever signs Ched Evans is going to get a lot of flak and sponsors and stakeholders will be under pressure to distance themselves from this. We will also alienate some of our own fans. A stupid gamble this in my opinion. We should have stayed clear.

Regardless of moral viewpoints I think the club is stupid to get involved in this, clearly going to have a negative impact.

Guy Branston's mind games getting a mention in this article with Akinfenwa http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/liverpool/11322842/Liverpool-beware-The-Beast-is-coming-for-you.html

fresh if we win, rusty if we lose

I just don't think people are patient enough to give managers that amount of time these days. As someone who is fed up with switching managers all the time I think (while we don't have a huge budget) we should stick with managers unless a change is needed to stay up. Of course if we suddenly had a lot of cash this might change as you could probably tempt someone of a higher calibre. I guess the other problem these days that managers face is that at our level you have to bring in a new team every year because teams don't like being stung with long contracts, unless there is a lot of money, players tend to come in for 2 seasons max. It's hard to build a good side in this manner as you always end up replacing the best players rather than adding to them.

He gets paid to watch football and has no idea about the standard of L1 football? Don't think he'll be a scout for long!

A question for those who attend regularly. Has changing the keeper unsettled the defence? My dad said he didn't think rachubka had done much wrong to be dropped, especially as we had been solid defensively with him in goal despite a few short comings.

Thanks really enjoyable write up

Each to their own I suppose but don't get the negativity towards the national side at all. International matches are a nice distraction from club football and despite what many believe, on a global scale England are still pretty damn good (and make no mistake football is a truly global game). There are plenty of nations envious of our position. As long as you don't take it too seriously there is nothing to lose. Anyway international football like any other is more fun when you have a team to support.

Are we likely to have any games on TV this year? Or have we just been lucky in recent seasons? I know the cup games are a bit of a bonus depending on who we are drawn against, but I was wondering if Sky are required to show at least 1 league game a season for each club? I am pretty sure games against Preston and Tranmere have been on in recent years. Still hoping to watch at least 1 game this season while not in the country. Maybe have to keep my fingers crossed for the play offs.

I've got no problem with the loan system. It is just a bit frustrating when we end up with 1 month stop gaps throughout a season when we don't have a proper squad in place or when you seemingly get a player of good calibre in and they are just here for the match fitness. LJ seems to do less of this though. As for loaning our players out I think we have done successfully a number of times. I think we would do it more but I get the feeling a lot of our youth and reserve players are not always in demand.

10th in the league? Going to be a quiet week one here ;)