Relegation Tracker

[nzlatic]

We're 7th in the form table (last 6 games).  Our next 6 games are against 24th, 12th, 21st, 3rd, 6th and 10th in the current form table.  No need to hit the panic button.

[Sloshed Joe]

If only we could play against ourselves. 

[Londonboy]

53 minutes ago, nzlatic said:

We're 7th in the form table (last 6 games).  Our next 6 games are against 24th, 12th, 21st, 3rd, 6th and 10th in the current form table.  No need to hit the panic button.

Agree.

 

Maidstone and Chesterfield are in dire form  and have 1 point each from their lst 5 games, so theoretically....although Latics ususally find a way to gift out of form teams 3 points....we should be looking for at least 4 points from these 2 games.

Gateshead away will be tricky but if we can avoid defeat there I'll be happy.

 

We probably need another 18 points before I'm comfortable, so 5 points from the next 3 games will be just fine 

 

Since NYD over 7 games we have averaged 1.7pts per game, so keep this up and we will end up on 61 points, probably in about 11th/12th place. 

 

Our last 6 fixtures also look OK. 4 at home and Scunny and Yeovil away so no panic yet from me.

 

KTF.

[BP1960]

4 hours ago, Sloshed Joe said:

If only we could play against ourselves. 

 

We do in training, that's why we look good to DU.

[St92]

8 hours ago, nzlatic said:

We're 7th in the form table (last 6 games).  Our next 6 games are against 24th, 12th, 21st, 3rd, 6th and 10th in the current form table.  No need to hit the panic button.

 

The panic button should already have been hit about 5 weeks ago though. We're looking for evidence that we can stop panicking, rather than a reason we need to start panicking

 

And collapses like last night don't help calm me down about our position 

[L1onheartNew]

7 hours ago, Sloshed Joe said:

If only we could play against ourselves. 

Instead of playing with

[nzlatic]

22 minutes ago, St92 said:

 

The panic button should already have been hit about 5 weeks ago though. We're looking for evidence that we can stop panicking, rather than a reason we need to start panicking

 

And collapses like last night don't help calm me down about our position 

My guess is that the club aren't looking at the manager's situation in relation to the last or the next 90 mins. More like the next 9 or even 18 months. They want to build something long term and want to give him a chance to do that. If they're seeing improvements - either obvious ones that we can see such as points or good spells of play, or ones less obvious such as player statistics then that might be good enough for them for now. 

 

For all we know this could be being discussed regularly by all parties behind the scenes. In other words, as much as some fans seem to be panicking at every dropped point or misplaced pass, the board probably aren't doing that at all.  In my opinion, that's much more likely to produce long term positive results (be that with Unsworth or without him).

[oafc1955]

2 minutes ago, nzlatic said:

My guess is that the club aren't looking at the manager's situation in relation to the last or the next 90 mins. More like the next 9 or even 18 months. They want to build something long term and want to give him a chance to do that. If they're seeing improvements - either obvious ones that we can see such as points or good spells of play, or ones less obvious such as player statistics then that might be good enough for them for now. 

 

For all we know this could be being discussed regularly by all parties behind the scenes. In other words, as much as some fans seem to be panicking at every dropped point or misplaced pass, the board probably aren't doing that at all.  In my opinion, that's much more likely to produce long term positive results (be that with Unsworth or without him).

Agreed….but I’m so so pissed off. The fact we aren’t competing at this level is doing my head in.

 

[nzlatic]

41 minutes ago, oafc1955 said:

Agreed….but I’m so so pissed off. The fact we aren’t competing at this level is doing my head in.

 

The way I’m trying to look at it is as the takeover only happened in July this season was never likely to be anything exciting. So if we’re not competing regularly at this point I’m not too worried. How we finish the season will be important to try get some momentum and then how we recruit over the summer. 

[St92]

3 hours ago, nzlatic said:

My guess is that the club aren't looking at the manager's situation in relation to the last or the next 90 mins. More like the next 9 or even 18 months. They want to build something long term and want to give him a chance to do that. If they're seeing improvements - either obvious ones that we can see such as points or good spells of play, or ones less obvious such as player statistics then that might be good enough for them for now. 

 

For all we know this could be being discussed regularly by all parties behind the scenes. In other words, as much as some fans seem to be panicking at every dropped point or misplaced pass, the board probably aren't doing that at all.  In my opinion, that's much more likely to produce long term positive results (be that with Unsworth or without him).

 

Yeah it's clear they're trying to play the long game, but I don't think even the most optimistic fan will say they've seen improvements in the performances. We've picked up better results sure, but not looked convincing for 90 mins in any of them 

 

I'm concerned that in 18 months time, we'll either be starting another rebuild in the national league north, or starting again in the national league when we could have started again now

[oafc1955]

9 hours ago, St92 said:

Yeah it's clear they're trying to play the long game, but I don't think even the most optimistic fan will say they've seen improvements in the performances. We've picked up better results sure, but not looked convincing for 90 mins in any of them 

I haven’t seen any improvement whatsoever. We’ve consistently given opposing teams so much time and space on the ball it’s criminal.

 

It was happening again against Gateshead on Tuesday where their midfielders were running freely 30 or 40 yards without so much as a challenge going in and it happened for their 1st goal. Hogan could clearly be seen tracking the goal scorer but backpedaling until he got to the edge of the penalty area allowing him to get his shot away totally unchallenged!

 

We have had half a season under Unsworth and I find it incredible that this ‘standing off’ ‘lack of press hasn’t been addressed when everyone else, including fans, media, and opposing managers can see what’s happening as plain as day!!

 

Despite the signings of Peck, Chapman and Shelton our midfield continues to be totally nonexistent and has been from day one under Unsworth.

 

I have seen enough now and despite the fantastic financial support they have been given by the board, I have no confidence whatsoever that our current management combination of Unsworth , Ebbrell & Jeffers have what it takes to build and coach a successful team capable of a promotion out of this division!

 

 

[Hemel latic]

21 hours ago, Londonboy said:

Agree.

 

Maidstone and Chesterfield are in dire form  and have 1 point each from their lst 5 games, so theoretically....although Latics ususally find a way to gift out of form teams 3 points....we should be looking for at least 4 points from these 2 games.

Gateshead away will be tricky but if we can avoid defeat there I'll be happy.

 

We probably need another 18 points before I'm comfortable, so 5 points from the next 3 games will be just fine 

 

Since NYD over 7 games we have averaged 1.7pts per game, so keep this up and we will end up on 61 points, probably in about 11th/12th place. 

 

Our last 6 fixtures also look OK. 4 at home and Scunny and Yeovil away so no panic yet from me.

 

KTF.

I'm not overly worried that we'll go down. The squad is good enough to stay up and 1.7pts per game is top 6 form. However, there's no room for complacency.

 

There are still 17 games left, over a third of the season. How we finish the season says everything for me about Unsworth and his future at Oldham. If we win more than we lose with increasingly better performances then there's a future. If however we continue with as many bad performances as good I think the club should be looking for a new management team.

[Sloshed Joe]

Is John Askey the best available person to replace Unsworth? If York sort their problems out sooner rather than later, he could be off the table before the end of the season.

[Dave_Og]

I see Southend settled their debt to HMRC the day before the winding up order

[astottie]

48 minutes ago, Dave_Og said:

I see Southend settled their debt to HMRC the day before the winding up order

Yes I'd noticed that. And they seem to have some working capital as part of the loan as well so the players might get paid now.

[oafc1955]

On 2/16/2023 at 9:30 AM, Hemel latic said:

I'm not overly worried that we'll go down. The squad is good enough to stay up and 1.7pts per game is top 6 form. However, there's no room for complacency.

 

There are still 17 games left, over a third of the season. How we finish the season says everything for me about Unsworth and his future at Oldham. If we win more than we lose with increasingly better performances then there's a future. If however we continue with as many bad performances as good I think the club should be looking for a new management team.

We’ve amassed more points since New Years Day 2023, (21 points from 11 games) than we did from the start of the season until Boxing Day at the end of 2022, 20 points from 22 games.

A tremendous transformation that I could never see happening after that embarrassingly one sided debacle at Notts County!

A point a game should be more than enough to stay up and we can then look forward to, hopefully, a much better season where we are competing at the top end of the table for a change!

[Ritchierich]

If this carries on we’ll soon be known as “mid table Oldham”

[disjointed]

1 hour ago, Dave_Og said:

I see Southend settled their debt to HMRC the day before the winding up order

Glad about that, it might be about a thousand miles from Oldham, but I hate to see clubs going to the wall. 

 

Might make an exception for Stretford FC. 

[BP1960]

2 hours ago, Dave_Og said:

I see Southend settled their debt to HMRC the day before the winding up order

 

In your experience  @Dave_Ogis there any reason clubs don't ring fence any anticipated payments to the HMRC to avoid such situations?

[Dave_Og]

1 minute ago, BP1960 said:

 

In your experience  @Dave_Ogis there any reason clubs don't ring fence any anticipated payments to the HMRC to avoid such situations?

No, it's bonkers.  Only possible reason is that they borrow from Peter to play Paul and hope that something will turn up.  It's no way to run a business.

[Gaz_Oafc]

On the subject of Relegation...

 

Looking more and more likely the derby will be back next season.

 

Rochdale rock bottom, effectively 10 points from safety having played more games than most and 2nd bottom of the form table.

 

EDIT - Scrap that, it's actually 6 points from safety, I'm forgetting only 2 go down.

 

[Dave_Og]

Anyone remotely worried about relegation now?

[Mayfield]

34 minutes ago, Dave_Og said:

Anyone remotely worried about relegation now?

@Dave_Ogno doubt some will still think there is a significant prospect yes.

 

My view is the likelihood has diminished substantially in the space of two games, but, failing to pick up points in the next run of games will of course drop us back down the table.

 

The performance level late February was where I hoped we would be in early January (latest), which in fairness isn't that much later, but fuelled the anxiety over the manager's ability to pick up enough points.

 

I recall Baz Rathbone in an interview speaking about the process of improving performance, having to work on all the various attributes, including fitness and players self belief, which if done correctly, shift the performance level up.

 

Didn't expect this to be so dramatic, with faltering improvement followed by shockingly bad displays (Altrincham, Halifax), then a bang at Barnet.

 

The Barnet game was remarkable by our recent standards, every department seemed to be better, the sum of the parts was substantially greater than before, plus we had a couple of individually outstanding performances (Magnus Norman just great).

 

Far from the finished article, the summer recruitment will define what comes next, I believe David Unsworth does need a big Non League budget to move us into a promotion winning side and I wonder if he will remain focussed on not conceding, rather than blitzing the league with free flowing football.

 

 

[nzlatic]

Of the 9 teams below us, all bar Gateshead are in the lower reaches of the form table scoring 1 point per game or fewer. Next to no chance we're getting relegated now. It's all about pushing for the top half. Top half tracker would probably be more relevant now!

[deyres42]

3 hours ago, Dave_Og said:

Anyone remotely worried about relegation now?

Remember that time when people thought it was a genuine possibility