Oldham Athletic U18 4-0 Chester City U18
Tanya Blakey

A very good performance by Latics saw them win the game in convincing style, due to the fact that they took their opportunities when they came.

In the past few weeks, they nave been dominating games and not taking their chances, but today was a different matter.

From the outset, the Latics were on top and were causing the backline of Chester problems, with their quick play and Latics often breached their defensive unit, and it seemed only a matter of time before a goal came.  This duly arrived in direct fashion when goalkeeper Josh Ollerenshaw's long clearance was chased down by Ryan Brooke who calmly rounded the keeper and impressively fired home from a narrow angle.

The goal seemed to give Latics even more confidence and every time they were in possession, they looked a real threat and it wasn't long before a through ball by schoolboy Andrew Crompton was latched onto by fellow schoolboy Leeroy Chinthengah who fired home across the goalkeeper from 14 yards.

At the other end of the pitch anything Chester could muster going forward was comfortably dealt with by a very confident back five.  Latics were playing some superb football at this time and Phillip McGrath fired home an excellent 18-yard strike just before half time to put the seal on a very good 45 minutes for the young Latics.

The half time interval saw two changes with Crompton and McGrath leaving the field of play due to slight injuries and Nicky Zaicevs and Greg Kidd joining the team and a slight change of formation was made.  However, this didn't knock Latics off their stride as they continued to dominate the game in all areas and they created chances and with a little bit more devilment, Latics should have added more than the one goal they got in the second half.

This was when a fine Chris Rowney free kick was headed home at the far post by Nathan Kilcourse to make the final score 4-0.

The Latics staff felt this was the youth team's best footballing performance for a while and hopefully this will give them great confidence going into the next game v Accrington on Saturday 28 February.