Oldham Athletic 2-0 Rochdale

Ten man Rochdale lost out in the local derby as Oldham ran out comfortable winners at Boundary Park. In a crazy 15 minute spell before the interval, Steve Eyre’s men conceded a penalty, had a player sent off and allowed the home side a second goal in first half stoppage time.

The Dale manager named an unchanged line-up from that which drew with Carlisle at Spotland on Tuesday. New loan signing from Brentford, Pim Balkestein made the bench. Marcus Holness and Neal Trotman lined up against their former employers.

Rochdale were the better side in the opening exchanges with Adams making good progress down the right but his centre was cleared for a corner.

Widdowson, Grimes and Jones showed some good one touch football down the other flank as they made in roads towards the Latics goal with Jones forcing Cisak into a fine low save. Trotman headed into the side netting from the resultant corner.

Ruben Reid forced Kean into action on 27 minutes when he had to tip the former Dale loanee’s strike over.

Neal Trotman was returning to his old club and endured a torrid afternoon. On 28 minutes he was cautioned after he pulled back Reid when the frontman caught Trotman in possession. 3 minutes later and the defender was in the spotlight again when he challenged Chris Taylor inside the area. Taylor, under very little contact, went down like the proverbial sack of spuds with referee Ilderton pointing to the spot. Reid stepped up to slam the ball home even though Kean got a good hand to the ball but he couldn’t stop it.

Many Latics fans were asking why Trotman wasn’t given a second caution for the challenge on Taylor but they didn’t have to wait long for their former player to leave the referee with no choice but to brandish a second yellow. From Dale corner, Oldham tried to break but Trotman made a silly challenge on Lee which warranted a booking and subsequently an early bath.

Joe Thompson was sacrificed for Balkestein to make his debut at the heart of defence.

With the on loan defender still getting upto speed, Paul Dickov’s men doubled their advantage. An Oldham corner was met by home debutant Nathan Clarke whose thunder bolt header left Kean with no chance; ironically Clarke would have been Trotmans man to mark had he still been on the pitch.

Two goals and a man down, Dale had a mountain to climb. Marcus Holness almost single hand idly kept his side in the game. Josh Parker ran onto a through ball and tried to round Kean in the Dale goal but somehow the stopper managed to push the ball away with the ball falling to Lee whose shot was blocked on the line by Holness. His clearance only fell to Winchester but his drive was headed off the line and over again by Holness with Kean seemingly beaten.

Rochdale’s attacking threat was minimal as they tried to stay in the game at the back. Gary Jones shot just over on 55 minutes in a rare visiting attack.

Taylor and Morais went close for Latics whilst Morais’ wicked right wing cross caused problems but Taylor couldn’t quite reach.

Dale’s Nicky Adams had one last push into the box but his dangerous cross was pushed away.

Reid had a 19 yard free kick pushed over by Kean as Latics kept the bragging rights in Oldham.

Steve Eyre said after the game: “I’m very very disappointed. Disappointed for the club, the fans and the board. We came here and felt organised and I thought we took control for the first 25 minutes without really breaking through to Oldham’s goal but a complete lack of mis-management by one of our players, three times in 10 minutes, resulted in 2 yellow cards and a penalty. I thought it was a penalty. If it was at the other end then I would have been jumping up and down wanting a penalty. If you’re a 6’4” 15 stone centre half and you throw yourself in your always going to run the risk of fouling. Neal played here; he’s maybe got friends here. I think he got caught up in the occasion. I won’t knock him for his desire to try and stop the ball going in the net for the penalty but the second yellow wasn’t a good challenge. It was Neal’s man that scored from the corner so your double whammy is a triple whammy; in fact I think it turned into a quadruple whammy! We had to get in at half time and ask the players to be men about it but also to be calm. We recognised that we would be defending for the majority of the second period and it was a question of not conceding again. I cannot tell you how happy I am with our approach to the second half but we gave ourselves too much to do to get back into the game. We thought about starting with Pim (Balkestein) with his height and balance but we recognised the clean sheet in mid week and kept the same team. Neal’s made it easy for us with regards to Pim, he brought some calm. Pim wasn’t involved in Brentford’s Carling Cup defeat to Hereford and my good friend Uwe Rosler has agreed to let him play in the Cup. We can’t wait for QPR on Tuesday. We travel Monday to prepare. These are the teams and managers you want to come up against and play at grounds like Loftus Road. We don’t know what team QPR will put out but we hope they take the game seriously then we can do some planning.”

                 
Att:5266

Rochdale: Kean, Widdowson, Holness, Trotman, Darby, Jones (C ), Tutte, Adams (Kennedy 84), Thompson (Balkestein 43), Grimes (Twaddle 63), Akpa-Akpro

Subs (not used): Lucas, Marshall

Oldham Athletic: Cisak, Black, Wesolowski, Diamond (C ), Carke, Reid (Diallo 89), Morais (Millar 77), Parker (Smith 54), Taylor, Lee, Winchester

Subs (not used):Gerrard,  Lund

Referee: Mr E Ilderton
Ass Referee:  Mr S Smith
                      Mr R Newman
4th Official: Mr C Akers