OLDHAM V ROVERS MATCH THREAD

The League One campaign continues on Saturday with another trip to Oldham Athletic.
All week this game has looked as though it was in danger of becoming "the Ched Evans circus" but after the events of today, thankfully that won't be the case.
Whatever your views are on whether Ched Evans should be allowed back into football, the threats made against the families of the Oldham Directors and staff have totally debased the case for him being kept out of the game.
Hopefully the person who made the threat will be caught and impisoned and banned from returning to whatever employment he has right now.
How ironic would that be for him?

Anyway, moving on to football matters.

We recently enjoyed a very good 1-0 win at Oldham in the FA Cup at a time when Oldham were in very good form and it had been considered by many, including myself, that we would do well to get anything from the game.
Since then Oldham have been on a poor run of form, with only one win in their last seven games, the last four of which have been lost.
This run includes a 7-0 defeat at MK Dons and a 4-0 home defeat to Yeovil.

Overall we have quite a decent record against Oldham winning 17, drawing 14 and losing only 8 of the total games played.
Games at Oldham show us with 7 wins, 6 draws and 6 defeats.

Our recent form has been excellent and we of course have lost only 3 of our last 14 games.

A significant factor in our improvement of course has been the strengthening of our defence and i have to say that i am impressed with the owners for signing Butler and McCullough on two and a half year deals whilst extending the loans of Stevens and Johnstone.
It shows committment to the cause which i have been calling for all season and it shows that they have faith in the manager who is now showing what he can do with a decent squad of players in a division that we can compete in equally.
Credit to the owners, there - i have said it.

One more thing i would really like them to do is to sort out a long term contract for Dean Furman when he returns from Afcon Cup duty.
Deano has six months left on his current deal and given the kind of performances he has been putting in i will expect other clubs to be knocking on his door soon.
Of course, out in Africa he is in the perfect place to be "tapped" by other clubs.

So, with the defence virtually sorted out i hope that the midfield lads and the forwards can do their stuff and provide the goals to win games.
I have continued to say, and i do believe, that we will have a good go at the play offs in the coming weeks and i have a sneaky feeling that we will find ourselves in a play off final.