Match Thread City at Oldham Athletic - Friendly

As I suggested last night , I thought Metcalfe would get a minimum of 45 . He’s had a full preseason so why not.? If you are going to introduce someone why not in a game that is a warm up?

 

You better take hard hat incase he starts throwing it about

 

makes a change from "up before it"

 

He was getting both barrels for most of the time he was on the pitch from Alexander. He was lazy so I'm not surprised he isn't starting.

 

But will he still be an Oldham player come the end of the season, certainly a loose cannon.

 

He put a great (and uncharacteristically unselfish) ball through for Swan to score vs Middlesbrough. I won't be surprised to see him play a part in the Wycombe game.

 

Leigh has gone off injured holding his hip after a challenge, Power has come on in his place. Hopefully Leigh's injury is just an impact on that will settle down in a day or 2 or we could be left with Power and Metcalfe as our only 2 CM options if Pattison is injured as well. Good chance for Power to show he can play 2 70 minutes in a week

 

City look very fetching in all pink kit. Leigh off injured replaced by Power

 

A central midfield four of;

Power
Metcalfe - untested in league 1
Leigh - untested in central midfield
Pattison - injury prone

Feels too light for me and is relying on Pattison not having too much time out and Leigh being able to play centrally.

 

According to Parker

Free header for Swan over the bar
1 shot by Humphrey on target , swallowed up by the keeper.

Walker untroubled

HT 0-0

 

Leigh is like one of them perfect looking visually footballers. By not very good….. not sure how long he has got to be fair.

 

I think we will be looking at another CM and there's always the option to put Sarcevic in there if needed

 

1-0 Humphrys

 

Nice goal by Humphrys. Showed pace and power to get past a couple of men. Keeper should have stopped it but a nice strike.

 

So that's the friendlies done and dusted.

Just the 1 goal conceded in the 5 games. I think we will hard to beat again at VP, but I think we will struggle even more than last season to score goals.

 

A pretty decent preseason tbf , nothing conceded from open play with a new defence isn’t too bad at this early stage .

 

Did we struggle to score last season? 7th highest scorers in the division and just 9 behind Doncaster who won the league. And this is without our main man for half the season.

We certainly struggled to score in some games but over the course of the season we were way above average.

 

7th highest scorers for a promoted side nothing to write home about.

Personally I think the defence was our strongest area and will probably be the same this season.

We will be without our main man up front for half this season too I suspect.

 

A good defence and you don’t need to score as many Idle….ask Wimbledon ?