Clean sheet needed in great win

The Latics goalkeeper writes every week for Chron Sport

YOU could clearly see flashes of exactly why Fleetwood are up there in the top half of the table when we played them last week.

But even though they have been performing well during their first-ever season of League One, we dominated the game.

When we watched it back on Monday morning we enjoyed it. It was particularly pleasing after our recent results. Win, lose or draw, we always look for positives and on this occasion there were plenty of them.

Carl Winchester produced a cracker of a goal and Liam Kelly looks really strong again after being out for a while with injury.

That said, I did have to stretch out the skipper for cramp late in the game, when the referee thought we were employing time-wasting tactics.

From what has happened lately and what everyone at the club has been dealing with, it was always going to be important to keep the points coming in. So a two-goal victory at a difficult club should give us plenty of belief.

The fans, too, were inspirational. Huddled together behind the goal at Highbury, they really helped the cause with non-stop singing. The clean sheet was needed. I was in goal when we kept five in six matches early in the season, but before Fleetwood I hadn’t had one since the first round of the FA Cup.

Our current points tally is slightly down on where we want to be, but there is a lot of competition for places in the top six and with everyone seemingly beating everyone else, one sustained run of results over a few games could really have a dramatic impact on the table.