The Latics claimed their first victory in six outings at Hartlepool on Tuesday night. Jose Baxter did the damage with a brace of goals, his second coming in the last minute from a rebound after his spot kick had been saved by the Pool goalkeeper.A relieved Paul Dickov said, “I am one who comes out and says when we didn’t get the luck we deserved. Whether we got the luck we deserved, I don’t know but the work rate and attitude of the players was excellent. It was chalk and cheese from Saturday. We have to keep our standards up. I haven’t spoken to any of the players since Saturday — so I might not speak to them again until this Saturday! There is a sense of relief, but we know we have to back it up now. It is no good coming here, digging in and getting three points and then not doing so. It has to be our main aim.”“I know we can play a lot better than we did here. It got a bit hairy towards the end, but the main thing was getting three points. I wrote on the changing room board before we went out — and I shouldn’t have to write it up — ‘work rate, desire and pride.’ I said if we got those three things, we would win the game. And we did. The last three games have really hurt. We draw a line under this now and go again. I said before the game we wanted six points from the next two and we have to move on.” “Youssouf came on and did well. He started off on the left, went into a middle three and finished off playing wide right, so he showed his versatility. Young Chris Sutherland did well and I thought Matt Smith was magnificent when he came on. We put big Matt up front at 1-1 because coming up here, against 10 men, you don’t want to settle for a point. You want all three. I think we might end up looking back at this and thinking what a good result it is. They have got players coming back from injury and they will be a decent team.”
Source: Oldham Athletic Mad
Source: FOOTYMAD
