Lee Johnson was left frustrated by Oldham Athletic’s ‘sloppy’ showing on Saturday as they dropped two points at home to Crawley Town.
Johnson described the build-up to Crawley’s equaliser as a ‘comedy of errors’ from his team and the overall performance as a ‘bit flat’ after the 1-1 draw.
But the Oldham manager still found positives to take from an unusually slovenly display, and was keen to look forward to next weekend’s trip to Sheffield United.
“Of course I’m frustrated and I feel we should have won that game today, but maybe we would have lost that game in the past and we’ve come out with a point today,” he said.
“We know where we are, we know that we’re a work in progress and we know that’s not good enough with the standards we’ve set ourselves.
“We’ve got to dust ourselves off and have a good week now and then go into Saturday.”
Daniel Johnson, a recent loan signing from Aston Villa, scored a brilliant solo goal on his debut to put the Latics ahead, before Gwion Edwards punished some careless Oldham passing to equalise.
“It wasn’t Paul Rachubka’s error because at the end of the day we got the ball out to James Wilson and he misplaced the pass,” Johnson explained.
“It was a comedy of errors. Timothee Dieng started it off by passing it back to the keeper when we had options to play the ball.
Oldham repeatedly gave away possession as they searched for a winner, and looked well below they par they set for themselves when they went 13 games unbeaten earlier in the season.
“I think it’s the standards we have set ourselves in one respect,” Johnson said.
“I think it was a bit flat today, everywhere. Everybody was still asleep – it was that type of game. It wasn’t particularly enjoyable, although we did give it a go.
“It wasn’t even the result, it was the sloppiness, in my opinion, that was so frustrating.”
Despite the Latic’s disappointing performance, Johnson was keen to learn from the experience and to look forward to next weekend.
“I don’t want to discredit Crawley because of course they make you give the ball away by good pressing, good work rate, and a solid back three, but there was so much wrong today,” he said.
“I can only analyse it and go back to the drawing board.”
Main image courtesy of OAFC via YouTube, with thanks.
