Oldham Have To Settle For A Point

Oldham let another lead slip this weekend as they drew 1-1 with high flying Cheltenham Town at Boundary Park.

It was also Oldham head coach Dino Maamria’s first draw during his stint at the club with one win, one loss and a draw from his opening three fixtures.

Cheltenham came into the fixture in the automatic promotion places and as the top scorers in the division with 20 goals in 11 games. 

Oldham started the game brightly and were almost ahead after five minutes as Christopher Missilou drilled in a ball that found Filipe Morais on the edge of the box after a clearance, but he couldn’t keep his effort down.

Then Cheltenham almost struck first, but Alex Addai was unable to force home the rebound after Latics goalkeeper Zeus de la Paz saved Broom's low drive.

Instead it was the Latics who led after nine minutes when Morais raced on to Jonny Smith's perfectly weighted through-ball and calmly slotted in from 18 yards giving Oldham a well-deserved lead. 

That goal saw Oldham through to the break with their lead intact and just 45 minutes away from a big win. 

After the restart, Desire Segbe Azankpo nearly doubled Oldham’s lead and probably should’ve done when he capitalised on a loose ball and raced towards goal before unleashing a strike which was comfortably saved by Flinders.

The visitors had some big chances of their own when Cheltenham's Conor Thomas saw his goal bound effort cleared by David Wheater, while Ben Tozer was inches from equalising from the edge of the area.

Cheltenham did pull themselves level in the 71st minute as a cross into the box found Ryan Broom and he smashed it past De Le Paz to get The Robins back into the game.

In the final moments Chris Hussey forced an excellent save from De La Paz and both sides were guilty of wasteful finishing in a hectic finale.

A draw for Oldham and one that on paper looks a good one but the Latics faithful will be wondering how they didn’t hold on for the win. 

After the game Oldham head coach Maamria stated, "It was a tough afternoon. Probably, if we took our chances we would've won the game. Physically we tired a little bit later on and is something we need to work on.

"We will get better but overall it's a very good point against a good team, they've been third in the league."

He added: "I think we showed a lot of resilience, we showed a lot of quality especially in the first-half going forwards.

"At the end I've tried putting three forwards on to try and win it, we couldn't. We had two great chances with Chris Missilou and Tom Hamer who missed an open goal and if we score one of those late on we'd have won the game.

"So it's a good day overall, good performance and the fans were backing us from minute one which was great to see, right to the end as well and that's what we need to do, we need to come together as a football club."

Photo By: Eddie Garvey