Development Squad
The Development Squad are at Wincham Park next Wednesday night in the first leg of Lancashire League Cup against Ashton Athletic (16.9.15 KO 7.45). Wittoners are urged to come and support especially as the squad is now taking shape. The whole point is having players in a state of readiness as injuries and suspensions start to affect the First Team Squad.
As a consequence team captain Kyle Parle, Adam Carden, Jamie Matthews and Laquan Esdaille have all signed first team forms and are available for team selection should Scott Dundas need to call upon them. Well done to all of those players.
Director of Football Development John Salmon was delighted. “It is a testament to what we are doing that already 7 players have signed first team forms in the 2 months since our inception. All 4 signings this week are more than capable with the first team level if called upon by the manager.
Carden has played in the Conference and is “fit as a flea” with great ball retention and game intelligence. Matthews has now scored 9 in 7 matches and looks to have added a final product to his other attributes of speed and strength. Kyle Parle needed games and to lose a few pounds. He has responded to this and was superb at Buxton and in the second half on Wednesday night. Similarly Esdaille needs to sharpen up fitness wise but is a 6ft 4 Colossus and having played 7 times for Oldham’s first team is certainly one we have high hopes for moving forward. There are one or two others coming up on the rails!
Turning to Wednesday’s game against Leeds based Academy side RIASA South (Won 2-1) it was nice to win but the most pleasing thing is that the players’ hard work and development is being acknowledged and rewarded. Head of Recruitment Paul Ogden was there and very complimentary. The President and Chairman were in attendance too which went down very well with the lads and made them feel part of the overall set up.
We largely dominated after being outmuscled for the first 20 minutes but could not score hitting the bar and missing several chances. We then conceded a soft penalty for pulling a shirt in the box and went a goal down. Jamie Matthews scored a good goal just before half time to equalise and that changed the team talk!
A full squad meant that we could alter things how we wanted and we won a penalty 30 seconds into the second half won by Jamie after a great ball by Craig Carney. Jamie promptly missed it but his pace and trickery beat the full back and enabled him to get a great cross in to the hard working Sharif who scored with an excellent downward header 10 minutes from time. Adam Carden was MOM.
The Staff issue has largely resolved itself except for the physio. In addition to Tony Ennion as Coach we now have Alex Grosart as Goal Keeping Coach and Scout and Dave McDonough who lives locally and gives us a wealth of tactical experience and nous having carried out games analysis for Rafa Benitez at Liverpool and Inter Milan. Special thanks to all of them.”