Brand-New Oldham Looking to Stay Up
The year 1992 was arguably Oldham Athletic's golden age as the club were founding members of the Premier League and managed to stay up for another season in England's top leage. Relegation in the following year led to years upon years of frusteration for fans as the club never made it back to where they once were in the Premier League.
Unfortunately, it doesn't look like the Premier League is very close for the club at least at the moment because they are towards the lower end of the League 1 table. They have endured some rough defeats like 3-0 to Millwall and then a pair of 2-0 losses to Swindon and MK Dons. While FIFA rankings are by no means a proper indicator of a team's skill, it is interesting to note that Oldham are the only 2 star team in League 1. As of right now its looking like the club is repeating last year's relegation battle, but I believe that there's lots a lot of hope for this team in the near future.
If one were to look at the starting lineup from Oldham's latest game over the weekend (a 2-1 victory over Gillingham) one would notice that this is almost an entirely brand-new team. Aside from midfielder Carl Winchester and right back Brian Wilson, every other player was just signed before this season began. Add in the fact that both the starting strikers, one of the starting centerback, the starting goalkeeper, and one of the backup strikers are on loan and you get a team that is very difficult to get to going in the beginning. All of new players, whether on loan or actually signed had to adapt to the new style of play at the club which obviously takes some time even beyond the summer training, so it makes perfect sense that Oldham have had some not so great results so far. However, evident by their win over a Gillingham side who were absolutely dominant last season with Bradley Dack, this squad is beginning to gain some momentum.
I think most people probably don't think much of this team because of last season's relegation struggles and the total squad overhaul over the summer. However, I believe that this team will do just fine with the mix of exciting younger players with some established veterans to keep control on the field. I don't envision them having too much of a difficulty with relegation this season, although I'm sure most other people do. If they manage to stay up this season, then it will be interesting to see how the squad will look next season with all the loan players having returned to their parent clubs. If the manager does a great job with signing replacements, then maybe Oldham can finally get out of their slump and begin their rise back to the Premier League that fans have been so dearly waiting for.
