Star spa stay after battery charge

The Latics striker writes every week for Chron Sport
IT has been a strange couple of weeks for Athletic.

Having had no game for 13 days, it was unusual to be training with no focus on a game. Normally the regime is geared towards the next match. Obviously, it needed to be tweaked.

Though we didn’t need this short rest period, it has been beneficial to the players with slight knocks and niggles.

Last weekend’s League One results were pretty favourable for us, with a majority of the teams at the bottom of the table losing. This made our win at Bradford even more satisfying, as we still remain four points from the drop zone.

We now enter a crucial part of the campaign, with the Easter period being pivotal at both ends of the division.

These matches in quick succession can make or break a team’s season and at this stage, it is vital we continue the form that has put us into a position of guaranteeing safety with two positive results.

We set off yesterday from Boundary Park and travelled to Colchester where we stayed at the Five Lakes spa hotel, which has brilliant facilities - including well maintained pitches.

This allowed us to train where we were to stay — rather than stop at another team’s training ground on the way to Essex. It made our preparation a lot smoother.

Fixtures are now running out and with only five remaining, today’s and Monday’s games will determine whether we will have pressure-free final games or a nail-biting finish. Along with many others, I didn’t expect us to be in this predicament. But I am confident I will be confirming Latics’ League One status in next week’s column.