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Oldham Athletic v Morecambe Your Report added at 00:02:49
My first game since last February, and it certainly wasn't worth the wait.

Tactically, this was one of the stupidest performances I've seen from any team, let alone Town. From the first few long balls played forward, it was obvious that Danny Shittu would win everything in the air. You'd think the players would have the intelligence to realise that it wasn't a good idea to persevere with this tactic, but obviously not.

As the game progressed it became apparent that the team possesses less imagination that the writers of Miranda. McCarthy responded by bringing on more forwards - we had four on the pitch by the end of the game, but we still barely created anything. Nouble had our best chance but failed to kick the ball when presented with it.

The defeat could have been worse if Martin hadn't managed to produce the best miss I've ever seen live (looking forward to seeing it on the Football League show later), but we didn't deserve anything from the game.

As for the players:
Gerken got a lot of stick for the goal from fans around me, but it was a freak cross that went in right in the top corner and I don't think he was overly to blame. However, his kicking was atrocious (I can't remember the last time we had a keeper who could kick the ball properly).

Defensively we weren't awful. Tommy Smith had his usual one epic fail when he performed an air kick and let in a Millwall forward in the first half, but I thought Berra, Chambers and Cresswell were ok when defending. However, when we had the ball, both the back four and the completely anonymous midfield (the only thing I can remember the midfield doing is getting injured (Hyam) and getting subbed on and off in the same game (Tabb)) persisted with the idea of playing long balls for Danny Shittu to head away . His OPTA stats for the game must have been amazing.

Up front, I felt very sorry for McGoldrick, because he was so much better than the dross around him. He linked up with the midfield and Murphy exceptionally well, but sadly one player cannot carry a team. Taylor looked energetic when he came on, but Nouble was dreadful.

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