Walsall v Oldham Athletic

The Saddlers recorded a first win of the season at the expense of Oldham Athletic, as Erhun Oztumer poked home a 90th minute winner.

Walsall boss Jon Whitney, headed into the game under increasing pressure after a woeful end to the previous season and consecutive defeats to start the current campaign. Meanwhile, Latics manager John Sheridan was also looking for a first victory of the season after losing to Oxford United and Burton Albion in their opening fixtures.

Predictably the game started in a cagey manner with few goal scoring opportunities. Summer signing Nicky Devlin was making his league debut for the Saddlers and his opening forays into the Oldham penalty area were reminiscent of the two previous right-backs at the Banks’s, McCarthy and Demetriou.

However, it was Oldham who opened the scoring as they cleared a corner through Ollie Banks whose raking cross field pass found McLaughlin on the left wing and his low cross crept all the way in past Saddlers ‘keeper Mark Gillespie.

Walsall entered into the half time break 1-0 down and with a chorus of boos from the home faithful.

Jon Whitney knew this could be a crucial 45 minutes, and he sent his troops out firing, and the increased tempo paid almost instant dividends as Joe Edwards swept home an equaliser on 53 minutes following a partially cleared corner.

The Saddlers continued to push for the winner and carved out a number of golden chances. First, Oztumer struck the post from 25 yards and when the rebound fell to Amadou Bakayoko he simply had to score, except he didn’t and he placed his shot from 6 yards out wide of the post.

Just as it seemed that the game would fizzle out into a draw, Oztumer popped up with the winner in the 90th minute, capitalising on Sean Donnellan’s flick on from Luke Leahy’s long throw, to stab the ball past the Oldham ‘keeper and into the net.

The sense of relief was perhaps even more apparent than the joy with the Walsall fans as Whitney’s men recorded a first league win since beating Swindon Town way back on Easter Monday.

The Saddlers will face much sterner tests than Oldham, but it feels good to have that winning feeling again.

Full-time: Walsall 2-1 Oldham Athletic.