Latics looking for lift-off in second half of season

PARK LIFE: ATHLETIC are on course to avoid a bottom-four finish, if last season’s League One table is anything to go by.

Dave Penney’s side reach the halfway stage of a trying season following the Boxing Day test against Tranmere Rovers at Boundary Park.

The agonising draw at Wycombe last week — which really should have been a victory, given the amount of chances Penney’s injury-hit side managed to create — took Athletic to the 25-point mark, 19th in the division.

Provided the Tranmere game goes ahead, Athletic will have faced every side in the division once come Saturday evening.

And even without taking the Rovers game into account, a repeat show in the second half of the campaign would take Penney’s men up to a half-century of points come May — which was just enough to side-step the relegation trapdoor in 2008-09.

Northampton were the highest-ranked side to be sent down to League Two last term, finishing on 49 points.

However, Athletic’s sights will no doubt be set higher than simply avoiding the worst-case scenario.

Vital duo Chris Taylor and Pawel Abbott have missed 17 league games between them so far, severely hindering the attacking threat of a side which has managed only 19 league goals this season — still the second-lowest total in League One.

Midfield enforcer Jon Worthington has missed 14 league matches on his own and defender Andy Holdsworth has managed only 13 appearances in League One. Both former Huddersfield Town men are out with long-term injuries following ankle and knee surgery respectively, and won’t be seen again until well into 2010.

Joe Jacobson, plagued by a pelvic troubles and more lately a calf problem, has started only two matches all season and Rob Purdie, the utility player signed by Penney from his former club Darlington in the summer, has yet to show for the first team due to a pelvic injury.

Young striker Lewis Alessandra had an ankle operation similar to Worthington’s and is looking at a return to full fitness at the end of January.

Once these players start to drift back into the reckoning, Athletic will hope to be a significantly stronger outfit than they are at present.


TWO Athletic players are treading a disciplinary tightrope over the next two games.

Captain Sean Gregan and striker Deane Smalley have both accumulated four yellow cards so far this season and will incur one-match bans if booked again before the turn of the New Year.