Revival provides optimism
Reporter: Matthew Chambers
Date published: 30 April 2014
Photo: Alan Howarth
James Dayton (left) pushes aside his Sheffield United marker.
Oldham 1, Sheffield United 1
JAMES Wilson’s powerful first-half header earned a deserved point and put Athletic on a run on nine unbeaten games.
The Wales international centre-back planted himself on the end of a glorious Connor Brown cross to open the scoring in a entertaining, pressure-free end of season clash at Boundary Park.
And as the home crowd sang “Lee Johnson’s barmy army” in the second half, even a goal from old boy Chris Porter didn’t dampen the mood too much.
Sheffield United appear destined for the top-six next season. There is too much talent within Nigel Clough’s squad to suggest otherwise.
Athletic’s chances of pushing back to such rarefied heights are limited. Wesolowski and Grounds could take better offers to move up while captain Korey Smith may be sacrificed at some stage to help pay for the imposing new North Stand.
Still, on the evidence of the timely recent revival there appears reason for some optimism.
Barring a huge defeat at home to Notts County and a hefty win for Gillingham on Saturday, Athletic are guaranteed to finish no lower than 15th and possibly 13th, their highest since 10th place in 2008-09.
Athletic were good on the night. Despite the absence of Grounds, David Worrall barely put a foot wrong as a makeshift left-back and John Paul Kissock gave it a good go in terms of replacing the missing energy of Wesolowski in midfield.
That said, the visitors — who surely only missed out on a promotion tilt thanks to their wretched start to the season — went close on a few occasions as the game ebbed and flowed. The best chance of all fell to former Athletic favourite Jose Baxter, who got a round of applause from the home sections when he was substituted. This would have been marginally less enthusiastic had he not hit the body of Paul Rachubka but actually scored, after 33 minutes.
Athletic began the second half brightly, with Dayton’s shot hitting Kennedy after Harkins had raced back to make a tackle — you read that right — but the Blades were mainly the sharper side.
Johnson’s men, who had kept three straight clean sheets before kick-off, had stretched their unbreached record to 354 played minutes by the time Porter netted.
Still, Athletic can count themselves unfortunate not to have gone 2-0 up after 80 minutes. A rare appearance from Carl Winchester off the bench saw him surge down the right and fellow replacement Charlie MacDonald only needed a fraction more contact to find the net.
Two minutes from full time Adam Lockwood thrust his head at a Dayton free-kick and sent the ball a few feet wide of goal and in added time, substitute Danny Philliskirk cut inside to shoot powerfully, but off-target and into the side-netting.
Rachubka was called into action again to tip over Michael Doyle’s left-foot drive from the edge of the area, but on the final whistle there was a sense neither side was too disappointed by the outcome.
