Latics v Cambridge United preview: time running out for promotion push

One valuable lesson I learned from James Reade, professor of economics at Reading University, Latics academic board member, Boundary Bulletin contributor and massive Latics fan, was to tell fortunes working on the basis of points per game.

Points per game was the almost-proof that Latics’ National League title challenge was over last season when they lost to Maidenhead United at Boundary Park on Tuesday 18 February 2025. With 16 games left, Latics were 14 points behind leaders Barnet, and in fourth place behind York City and Forest Green Rovers. Game over. The play-offs were more fun anyway.

Cambridge United, tomorrow’s opponents at Boundary Park, are on 50 points and sit in third place, 15 points and eight goals ahead of Latics. Additionally, there are 12 teams in a better position to take advantage. Latics need over a point per game more than Cambridge for 20 games to overhaul them. Reader, there is no chance of that happening. It’s 30 January, and Latics are out of the running for automatic promotion.

Play-offs it is then. Latics are 11 points and five goals behind Swindon Town in the final play-off spot. This means Latics need just over half a point a game more than Swindon to leapfrog them and get ready for another unforgettable victory at Wembley. Stranger things have happened and will happen again, but there are eight teams ahead of Latics in the queue to take advantage, so the margin for error is very, very tight.

There’s plenty of football to be played this season, but picking up three points against the teams higher up as well as below becomes more and more important if Latics are to stop fans from falling into the desperate state of hoping against reason.

Latics can’t win a play-off spot tomorrow, and winning the game won’t be a step towards catching Cambridge in the standings, but the time is coming when, if Latics don’t win, they do serious and perhaps unrepairable damage to their promotion hopes.

PETT SOUNDS

Poor old Tom Pett. He opened the scoring last Saturday – with his left foot! – then was betrayed, grossly let down…by Tom Pett.

For once, the Latics players didn’t look to the man in the middle for mercy when he awarded Barnet their penalty just before half-time. I’d never before seen a penalty given when not a single player protested. A good half of the players from both sides stood with their mouths open wondering what just happened.

Tom Pett made an unbelievable, uncharacteristic mistake is what happened. He elbowed a Barnet free kick out of play from inside the area, and the referee, who can be faulted for giving the home side the benefit of the doubt a bit too often during the game, will never have an easier or less controversial decision to make.

Pett has been an outstanding Latics captain in the absence of Tom Conlon. Like Conlon, Pett leads by example on and off the field, and has an exemplary disciplinary record for a central midfielder who gets stuck in. He’s one of the more level-headed football players around: responsible, smart, non-volatile, low maintenance.

He looked shattered when he was subbed off after 60 minutes, but came out to speak to BBC Radio Manchester after the game, which is a huge tribute to his character. He admitted fault, explained it insofar as it was possible to explain what happened, and promised to go again. Latics are blessed to have him as a captain.

Come to think of it, Micky Mellon can take a chunk of the credit for that: for all his heavy bias in favour of experience over youth, the character of the players he trusts is beyond question. He could throw the armband blind into the dressing room and hit a captain.