Sports Editor Tony Bugby brings us the latest from Oldham Athletic.
LET THE action begin as next Saturday (August 9) Oldham Athletic kick off their 2014/15 Sky Bet League One campaign at Colchester United.
Manager Lee Johnson has one last chance to do fine tuning as Latics entertain Huddersfield Town on Saturday, August 2 in their final pre-season match.
It has been a summer of great change at Boundary Park with the exodus of key players including midfield mainstays Korey Smith and James Wesolowski as well as key defender Jonathan Grounds.
Johnson has made six signings – midfielders Mike Jones and Liam Kelly, defenders Joseph Mills and Brian Wilson as well as strikers Amari Morgan-Smith and William Gros.
Mills, who had a successful loan spell with Latics from Burnley last season, needs no introduction while the other new boys will also be keen to make a good impression.
It will be interesting to see if the new-look team hits the ground running after what can only be described as an inconsistent pre-season.
Latics scored eight goals at non-league Curzon Ashton in their first public pre-season workout and followed that with an impressive 2-1 victory at home to Newcastle United who will claim they had only been back in training a couple of days and they were also still without their World Cup players.
Since then there has been disappointing draws against Aussie side Melbourne City and Morecambe along with a slender 2-1 win at Barrow, another non-league club.
Next Saturday there will be points at stake for the first time as Latics make the lengthy journey to Essex to play Colchester. That is followed by a Capital One Cup tie three days later against Championship side Middlesbrough and league game against Leyton Orient, both at SportsDirect.com Park.
Once the opening week of the season has been completed, that should provide a useful pointer as their prospects for the new season which could be another challenging one due to the financial restraints.
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