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Northampton Town 2 Oldham Athletic 0

Gavin Browne
23/ 4/2008

TWO second-half goals at Sixfields condemned Latics to their ninth away defeat of the League One season.

Strikes from Giles Coke and Ryan Gilligan extended Northamp-ton’s home run to one defeat in 11 games during 2008, allowing them to leapfrog Athletic in the table in the process.

They always looked the likelier winners on a day when John Sheridan’s team failed to fire, handing Cobblers’ keeper Mark Bunn one of the easiest clean sheets of his career.

Although Chris Taylor’s illness allowed Jason Jarrett to return, Latics were toothless going forward and maintained their unwanted run of one good performance followed by one bad one.

Consistency has been the buzzword at Boundary Park for most of the season with players performing either well or poorly – not a recipe for a play-off chasing team.

The tone was set 45 minutes before kick-off when a mix-up in sock colour – of all things – saw Athletic forced to borrow Northampton’s home socks for the afternoon.

However, the ‘Great Sock Crisis of Northampton Town’ could not be offered up as any sort of reason for Latics’ listless performance.

While neither side looked anything but mid-table stragglers during the first half, at least the home side had some threat going forward.

Neal Eardley cleared off the line to thwart Adebayo Akinfenwa before Mark Crossley was called into action to deny Akinfenwa and Poul Hubertz.

Coke missed arguably the best chance of the half, rolling a shot wide when one-on-one with Crossley a minute before the break.

He made amends six minutes after the break, fizzing a shot past Crossley from 20 yards with the aid of a deflection which wrongfooted the veteran.

Gilligan wrapped the game up 12 minutes later, converting at the second attempt after Crossley had saved his initial effort.

In contrast, Latics were reduced to efforts from distance with Jarrett and Deane Smalley firing over and Matt Wolfenden optimistically shooting straight at Bunn from 30 yards.

It could have been worse for Athletic with three minutes remaining, only for Stefan Stam to clear off the line from Danny Jackman.

At least they have the chance to end their home season with three points against Cheltenham Town on Saturday; given how results have panned out over the course of the season, prepare for a good performance.