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“History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.” Our performances recently have been both tragic and farcical, and I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. But it certainly feels like history is repeating.
“It’d be typical Oldham to go and beat the team that’s top of the league after losing to Maidenhead!” Hmmmm. Yes. That is one of the potential scenarios that would be ‘typical Oldham’. I wasn’t confident going into the Barnet game, but I honestly didn’t think we’d capitulate in the way that we did.
My heart sank when I saw that Mark Shelton was starting for Barnet, as I had a feeling that would guarantee they’d win. I thought the amount of stick he got was unfair; he never lacked effort or application, it just didn’t work playing him and Sheron together in midfield. It was inevitable we’d be in his ear, though, and it was mostly pretty funny.
“Shelton, you’re a knobhead!” Standard. “Shelton, fuck off back down south!” He will do after the game, that doesn’t make any sense. “SHELTON! YER MUM SELLS AVON!” Oh now really. Credit to him, he gave as good as he got.
It was a pretty even first half, with both teams having chances. Donaghy made a great save from Stead’s header, and there was a nice one-two between Caprice and Pritchard, but unfortunately Pritchard’s shot ended up in our garden. Fondop forced a good save after Pett put him through in the box.
At half time the mood was pretty upbeat. We’d held our own and had chances. The question did have to be asked, though: have we played well, or have Barnet not moved out of first gear? We got our answer pretty soon.
Barnet scored with the first move of the second half after we didn’t clear a long ball, then immediately made it 2-0 when Ogle lost the ball in midfield and Stead was able to just run straight the middle into the box. And if you were wondering, yes, I did miss both goals.
From there, our heads just dropped, in a way that didn’t happen earlier in the season. We brought Waters on but he looked so frustrated, and nothing like as aggressive as he has been.
Barnet always looked more likely to get the next goal, and they made it 3-0 when Oluwo bundled in a corner at the far post. The mass exodus when it went in can’t have been good for the Rothwells to watch, with season tickets going on sale in the coming weeks.
Barnet, in full control of the game, made 5 substitutions in the second half. We were chasing the game and made one. Why?
Mellon looked utterly dejected after the game, and condemned the defending for the goals: “you can’t get danced around in your own 18 yard box..... I would have taken full responsibility if someone had danced by me there.” It’s never a good sign when managers go down the ‘well if I’d been playing I’d have done better than that’ route. In fairness, he was apologetic, acknowledging that people had been let down “and we’re sorry about that”.
After that shit show, going to Boston seemed like an utter waste of a day off work, but, in fairness, it’s pretty nice, as new grounds on a retail park go. The bar welcomes away fans and it’s good, there’s posh hand cream in the toilets. The vegan sausage rolls in the ground were nice, and they were only £2. That was as good as the evening got, unfortunately.
Their mascot, the (ahem) BUSA Bear, was bothering our children before the game, playfully offering them out for a fight. Someone’s brave when Chaddy isn’t there.
We beat Boston 4-0 at our place, and playing the team who are second from bottom, with Conlon and Uchegbulam back, should have been a golden opportunity to get back to winning ways. But we fucked it.
Ogle made some decent runs forward, but we didn’t really do anything with it and gave the ball away far too easily. Jes came in for some stick, but at least he was showing for the ball and getting forward and trying. He kept losing the ball because there was no one to pass it to.
Boston hit us on the break and had a few chances, and Donaghy had more saves to make than I would have liked, but they were even worse up front that us, and we should have punished them for it.
Fondop was, once again, our best defender from set pieces, and it’s asking too much from him to play him up front on his own (yes he is playing up front on his own, please don’t feed us shit and tell us that it’s ice cream). And once again, the referee thought he was fair game. In the first half, he challenged for an aerial ball and one of their players just put both hands into his back and pushed him. Free kick to Boston. Utterly inexplicable.
📸 Thomas Lee Stacey
Fondop had the best chance of the game when he hit the bar from a free kick late on. It’s a damning indictment of how poor we were that it took until the 91st minute for us to seriously look like scoring.
At the risk of being over-emotional (remember though, lads, loud uncontrolled rage is also an emotion), I felt like crying on the way home. And not just because it was a dry coach. How the hell have we gone from beating Tranmere and out playing Leyton Orient for 90 minutes to this?
If Micky Mellon is to blame for our current slump, then he also deserves the credit for how well we played before Christmas. I don’t understand how it’s gone so wrong, though. Yes, we’ve lost key players. Yes, we’ve been unlucky with injuries. But surely to fuck we should still have been capable of – at the very least – scoring against the team that’s second from bottom of the league?
I don’t know where we go from here. I don’t know what the answer is. Mellon is looking increasingly incapable of turning this around, but I don’t know whether bringing in a new manager at this stage of the season would help.
Anyway, enough of the on-pitch misery, time for wholesome Latics family news. Tom Fenton is swimming 10k in March (which seems like a ridiculous amount to someone who can barely swim a full length) to raise money for Cancer Research UK. It’s great cause and a fantastic effort, please donate if you can.
If we play anything like as poorly today as we did v Boston and Barnet, the atmosphere is going to be absolutely toxic. We’re not stupid, we know we’ve lost players and it’s been a tough time, but how we’re playing is nowhere near good enough.
I might sack the game off and go to the castle instead. Castle and a pub crawl? Andy’ll be like a pig in shit. Or maybe the team will pull their collective fingers out and make the journey worthwhile. We can only hope. KTMFF.
Written by Arlene Finnigan
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