Cod Almighty | Match Stats

Saturday 30 March 2019

Division 4

Oldham Athletic 2 Öhman (own goal, 42), Lang (77)

Grimsby Town 0

Attendance: 3998 (777 away fans)

Davis and The Hess made the least mistakes and were awake longer than the rest. That’s as good as it gets.

Through all the blandly descriptive oral polyfilla one tiny nugget of emerged:

“…looking at people within the squad and saying do you want to be part of this moving forward.”

More on this

Whatever he said is so secret we, the public, are not allowed to hear it.

He’ll be happy and inflate the distinctly mundane into some kind of motivational tosh. Can’t blame him for that.

We turned up, why didn’t you?

When not seeking promotion, or trying to avoid the sack, you and I do “enough” at work. Why waste that last bit of work when you’ve already reached your target for the year? But people pay to watch footballers work, they have an extra responsibility beyond their own private interests and that nebulous concept of "pride".

When 777 people travel across the country and give you a rousing reception you owe each and every one of them a duty: 90 minutes of concentration and full commitment. That's all we ask.

We didn't get it.

Two stodgy wing backs who are neither one thing nor another, a midfield stuffed with huffers and puffers and forwards who’d signed a secret non-aggression pact with the Oldham central command.

Dennis is the new Connor Jennings, Vernam is a slinkier Sam Kelly, Thomas is waiting to go home. No-one really wanted to get hurt.

Paceless, faceless, useless.

These Lactic flaccids won almost by accident simply because, individually, their players are more highly skilled. Or is that less poorly skilled?

Their keeper was a shot-stopping show stopper, but flaky around the edges when uncollecting crosses, and I really can't be bothered with the rest of them. They were just blokes kicking the ball around.

So then, Oldham: a bit taller, a bit faster, a bit more likely to shoot accurately, but a bit of a mess as a collective. A slightly superior form of mid-table tosh.

Oldham slumbers filled our eyes

Mr J Adcock

Apart from his failure to award Town a free kick when Rose’s shirt was ripped in half there isn’t any future in this referee’s gleaning. He was not an actor or factor in this dull thud of a non-game: 7.001

We came, they bored, Oldham conquered.

In a word: Shameless