Drummond and Payne, sunshine and rain

No. No. I’m still not looking at hotels. You are.

You don’t need to book a hotel in London if we go up automatically.

I’m trying to not get carried away. Honestly, I’m trying. But they’re making it very hard.

Firstly, all our love to fellow blogger Andrea Heslop, who recently lost her dad. She wrote beautifully last weekend about how being at Boundary Park helped lift her after the hardest week of her life. The whole Latics family is with you, Andrea.

Last Saturday had the potential to be a banana skin. Harrogate are scrapping for survival at the bottom of the league, and had a good result the week before, beating Tranmere 3-0. It’s the kind of game we probably would have lost last season. Not this season, though.

It was never likely to be a classic. Stevens had a decent effort early on after good work from Drummond and Fondop, but his curling shot was wide. Later in the half, the ball pinged around the box after Drummond’s shot was blocked, and Daniels (of all people) couldn’t get his shot on target.

We were very lucky to not concede just before half-time when Monthe hesitated in dealing with a long ball, Hill hit the post and thankfully it didn’t fall to Muldoon in the penalty area. We were looking a bit tired, things needed changing.

Garner came on for Hammond at the start of the second half and had a shot from outside the box blocked in the first minute. Stevens did well to block Headman’s attempted clearance inside the penalty area; Headman’s subsequent challenge looked a lot like a foul. In fairness, the referee had a pretty good game.

We made further changes 5 minutes in, with Leake coming on for Sutton (who’s played a lot of football in a short space of time after not playing at all for a while, and it looked like it was catching up with him a bit), and Payne on for Drummond. Harrogate had more chances than we’d have liked – it was too easy for them to run through our midfield, and Morris played a good ball into the penalty area, but Taylor shot wide. Daniels got a knock stopping Evans’ shot after Muldoon backheeled it to him in the 6 yard box. Come on, lads, we can’t have Harrogate taking the piss doing backheels in our fucking box.

Thankfully, the deciding moment of the game went our way an hour in. Woods had been getting a kicking all game, and Evans was booked for yet another late, clumsy challenge on him halfway into the Harrogate half. Woods played the resulting free kick into the box, Fondop headed it across goal, Monthe headed it to Leake, who’d managed to get into a load of space at the far post, and he stooped to head it in and give us the lead. Wonder what odds you’d have got on him as first scorer before the game?

📸 Phill Smith

Hudson still had work to do and made a great save from Acqua’s shot from a corner. Harrogate were visibly tiring, though, and we had two chances on the break where Fondop’s shot was blocked and put out for a corner. He channelled his frustration into whipping the crowd up, thankfully, rather than decking their number 30, who he seemed to be in lengthy dialogue with throughout the latter stages of the game.

It was a tough, gritty game, and Hudson had to make some important saves to keep us in front in the last 10 minutes, but we saw it out and ground out a hard-fought win. And they can be the best kind, can’t they? Mellon certainly thinks so. We even got a fist pump from him at the end.

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The gaffer was delighted with our resilience and how we dug in, and, as usual, praised the supporters for the atmosphere. He hailed Jake Leake as “a Rolls Royce of a player…it breaks your heart sometimes when he gets so much bad luck”. He did concede that he couldn’t really take the credit for his goal: “I never brought him on to score, I’ve got to be honest, you don’t bring left-footed players on at right-back to score goals.” He acknowledged that the team were tired – apparently it was gone 2am when they got back from Chesterfield – and that he always expected to need to use the bench today.

He also found the time to celebrate his new contract by having a wee dig at his better half: “My wife said to me, ‘oh here we go, the old get the contract or manager of the month and then you lose the next game job’…so Jane, no, you were wrong.” Hahahaha. Well, haven’t we all been wrong about Micky Mellon at various points over the last year?

Leake, bless him, admitted that the last few months have been tough for him, and it was clear that the rest of the players were delighted for him. If Mat Hudson is off for big money in the summer, then he’s going the right way about cementing his place in our affections before he goes, both with his performances and with saying all the right things off the pitch: “you expect nothing less from these fans, they’re unbelievable, aren’t they?.... We’re a massive club, aren’t we, probably the biggest in this league.” That’s right, Mathew, and don’t you let anyone forget it.

If Saturday was a hard-fought for win, against a team battling relegation, then Tuesday was bound to be a really tough test, against a team pushing for an automatic promotion place. Wasn’t it?

Saturday was a beautiful day with glorious sunshine. Tuesday night was the opposite. Driving rain, swirling wind. Proper football conditions. Bring it on.

It became clear rather quickly that the weather wasn’t going to be the only thing that was very different to three days earlier. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who pulled a face at Payne starting ahead of Hammond, but, 5 minutes in, it was once again proved that Micky Mellon is a football genius, and I am a dickhead.

Monthe gave Iorpenda a tiny bit of a shove halfway inside our half. We cleared the resulting free kick, Payne got hold of the ball and looped a great ball over County’s retreating players to Drummond, who went flying down the right, past their defender into the box, and elected not to pass to the unmarked Stevens screaming for the ball to the left, and put it past the keeper. 5 minutes,1-0 up. Maybe this wouldn’t be such a stern test after all.

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Hudson made a great save from Jatta’s header at close range, and at the other end, I thought Fondop had made it 2-0, but his header was just wide. County were clearly rattled by the early goal, and both me and OASIS El Presidente Will Holdaway said that they weren’t going to finish the game with 11 on the pitch.

If you were a betting person, you might have been tempted to have a flutter on Oliver Norburn being the one to get sent off, given that he’d got his marching orders the game before last. Sure enough, having been booked for tripping Fondop off the ball 24 minutes in, he made an even more idiotic challenge three minutes into the second half, going through the back of Woods. Two yellow cards on the night, two red cards in ten days. Maybe he should try practicing mindfulness.

We had them on the ropes now. Drummond forced a good save from Belshaw at the near post, having turned their defender inside out after Woods played him in down the right. What we needed to get a crucial second goal, obviously, was for them to win a set piece.

From their corner, we launched another brilliant counter-attack. Robson played the ball out to Payne (who had his best game so far for us), who made a great run down the middle. After playing a neat 1-2 with Stevens, Payne was unlucky to see his shot parried, but God’s number 9 was on hand to put away the rebound.

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At this point, the Notts County players looked increasingly miserable in the pissing rain and would rather have been anywhere other than the Boundary Park pitch. The last thing they needed to see was Monthe intercepting a loose ball, sprinting down the left and winning a corner. Weren’t expecting our massive centre half to turn into a young Gareth Bale, were you, lads? Weren’t expecting to have to worry about him as an attacking threat, were you? Sorry, boys, your night isn’t going to get any better.

The match was effectively over as a contest on 69 minutes (nice), and we really didn’t need them to present us with such a gift, but it was gratefully accepted. Ness played a catastrophic back pass to their keeper which Fondop intercepted, for it was God’s will that we won this game 3-0. I just felt bad for them. And fucking delighted for us.

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Mellon was rightly impressed: “Terrific performance, in really difficult conditions, against a really good team”. He was pleased with our pace and tempo – “pace kills at any level”, singled out Drummond (“a terrific little character”), Payne (“outstanding”) and Fondop (“superb”) and looked ahead to giving us something to cheer on today at Crewe: “We’ve sold out the away end, again, so they people need represented.” Yes, we dae.

While Payne stuck to the ‘we’re not getting carried away, we’re taking each day as it comes’ script, God’s number 9 was, as you might expect, a little more forthcoming in his faith, and more demanding of ours: “I hope everyone is dreaming…we need everyone to have faith that we can do it again”.

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That faith was certainly encouraged by Mellon snr revealing in his pre-match presser yesterday that Mellon jnr is back in training, along with Tom Conlon and Reagan Ogle; all three could feature again before the end of the season; and young Michael “will be back with us in three weeks”. Oh God he’s going to score the winner at Wembley isn’t he? And they’re gonna play Son Of My Father by Chicory Tip over the tannoy. Oh God this is going to be amazing….

OK, maybe I’m getting a tiny bit carried away. But Christ, it’s a lot more enjoyable supporting Latics right now than it has been in years, isn’t it? It sure as fuck beats playing one up front at home against Dorking Wanderers.

Maybe we’ll make the play offs, maybe we won’t. Maybe it’ll be Wembley again ole ole, maybe it won’t. Let’s enjoy this run for as long as it lasts. It should be a cracking day out at Crewe today, and, whisper it, we could be in a play off position at 5pm. See you in Ebenezer’s. KTMFF.

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Written by Arlene Finnigan