William Bewsey
5:51pm, Thu 25th Jan 2024
Oldham Athletic vs Woking
Vanarama National League
Saturday 27th January 2024
15:00 Kick-Off
Woking travel to the in-form team in the National League on Saturday when they visit Oldham Athletic.
After Tuesday night’s narrow defeat at Chesterfield, Michael Doyle took plenty of positives from the performance, and will look to manage the minutes of several players who returned to action from injury such as Jermaine Anderson and Ricky Korboa. Minus Luke Wilkinson and Manny Oyeleke, he should have a clean bill of health for the trip up to Boundary Park.
Opposition Watch
Micky Mellon’s Latics took time to get going in the league, but since these two sides last met in November, Oldham have lost just twice in the league in eight attempts, both of those losses at home. A shock 4-1 defeat against Ebbsfleet and a 2-1 defeat to Gateshead have been minor blips in a run that has seen big wins at Solihull, Barnet and Hartlepool to name a few.
This run has propelled Oldham into fifth place in the table, with 45 points from 28 games having scored 45 and conceded 38. 16 of those goals have been scored by the experienced James Norwood, who is in a rich vein of form having bagged 10 in his last 10 games in all competitions, whilst the signing of forward Andrew Dallas on loan from Barnsley is a real coup; the Scot scored 19 National League goals last season at Solihull and Chesterfield.
Tuesday night’s 2-0 win over Barnet saw the Latics close the gap to the third placed Bees to 10 points with Mellon’s men having a game in hand over their promotion rivals, and it was Norwood who secured all the points with a penalty either side of half time.
Last Time Out
Norwood was to get the better of the Cards in November as well, as Ian Dyer’s first game as caretaker manager ended in a 1-0 defeat at the Laithwaite. That was also the score the last time these two met at Boundary Park, with Nathan Sheron scoring deep into added time to defeat a depleted Woking side 1-0 in March.
The only other meeting between these two sides saw Oldham, then managed by John Sheridan, defeated 3-0 at the Laithwaite in September 2022, thanks to a Tyreke Johnson brace either side of a Luke Wilkinson header.
Around the Ground
Ticket pricing and other details are available
here.
Woking fans have been allocated block Lower CRE of the ground, with tickets cheaper online until midnight on Friday.
Tickets are available on the gate (cash only) or at the ticket office, but for an increased price.
This area has bar and food facilities, although Oldham town centre has more food and drink facilities. Buses are available from the town centre to the ground, taking about 10 minutes.
The Cards Trust are running a supporters coach to this fixture, details are available
here.
