Football Season Guide

Oldham's 2016/17 season was almost an exact replica of their previous campaign as they looked all but certain to go down before being taken over by John Sheridan who managed to stir them to safety on both occasions. Sheridan, who left the club at the end of the 2015/16 season to go on what turned out to be an ill-fainted spell at Notts County, stated at the end of the previous campaign that he would not be going anywhere and that his side will aim for much more next time around. Sheridan has opted to go with quality rather than quantity during the summer transfer window, with Dan Gardner, Craig Davies and Rob Hunt all having plenty of League One experience. Courtney Duffus, who signed from Everton U23s, is the only player who is an unknown at this level. On the other side, absolutely none of the players that left were crucial to the Latics, with Josh Law being the only one of them who was a regular last season. However, it also needs to be noted that the Latics have lost players who became regulars but were on short-term loans, such as Lee Erwin, Tope Obadeyi and Michael Ngoo. With all this, the problem of a possible lack of squad depth arises, with the Latics currently having only 18 players over the age of 20 on their books. Sheridan seems to be able to name a better matchday squad than he could last season but it certainly does seem that he did not really get the sort of backing that he was expected over the summer, given the lack of numbers. It is rather difficult to make any sort of a confident prediction regarding Oldham given how different they were in the first and the second half of the previous season. Sheridan has had them looking like a play-off side in their two escapes from the drop but he will now have a chance to see what he can do over an entire season.