Signing off on positive note

Latics’ assistant manager writes every week for Chron Sport WE were delighted to end a frustrating season on a high by beating a talented Carlisle side.

It was even sweeter to do it in front of our own fans, who can at least go away for the summer with a bit of enthusiasm.

We played some very good football against a team who started the day still in with an outside chance of reaching the play-offs.

We threw in a few youngsters and they showed their potential — hopefully they can kick on after the summer and stake a claim in the next campaign for regular inclusion.

We surrendered a 3-0 lead at Carlisle last October and had to settle for a 3-3 draw which hurt, but that wasn’t our motivation this time.

The driving force was actually preventing another team coming to Boundary Park and having a party in front of our fans.

That is never a nice feeling and fair play to the lads, they went out there and did what we asked.

Credit must go to our manager for a nice bit of psychology. He excluded Oumare Tounkara from the squad for the derby draw at Bury, but brought him back into the fold for the Carlisle game.

It obviously worked because Oumare played much better than he has been recently and popped up with the winning goal.

Everyone was pleased — Oumare was happy to get the winner, the manager was happy his methods paid off, and most importantly the supporters were happy with three points.

It hasn’t quite worked for Oumare in his second loan spell at this club.

We all know he can do what he did in the last match, but the problem is getting him to do it on a consistent basis.

Now the focus turns to arranging the pre-season friendlies. We are down the road with that at the moment and want to put it to bed before enjoying a short break.

We are also waiting to hear which players sign new contracts. If they do, great, if not we will look elsewhere.

The phone will be ringing a lot throughout the summer and it is going to be a constant battle!



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