Second place!

Well, somewhat predictably, after having beaten two top sides in close matches, Oldham succumbed to a "lesser" team, or a team they might have been fancied to beat. Of course, Millwall are resurgent under a very good manager, and so the result isn't all that outlandish, but nonetheless disappointing, as the Latics lost 2-1 at home to Millwall.

My model predicted 6042, and the gate was actually 6181, so at least I was only about 140 out in my prediction.

Movements forward have been made in my bivariate Poisson model, so hopefully by Tuesday evening (pancake Tuesday!), I'll be able to predict the result of the Port Vale v Oldham match. Quite an important one really, another defeat will leave us playing catch-up big time. A win is needed badly. Come on Oldham!

League leaders!

I might not be able to write that as a title too many times, so I'll make the most of it while I can! Admittedly the Latics have been performing consistently well for about 26 matches now (just 3 defeats, 16 wins and 7 draws in that time), but who knows what being top of the pile will do for nerves? For confidence levels? Will they get too high?

Remains to be seen. Today's a big test, as three of the biggest stars of the season so far are ruled out, and Oldham play a resurgent Millwall side. What will the outcome be? I'm currently working on a bivariate Poisson model to predict match outcome, and maybe by 3pm I might have got it working, in which case I'll post a prediction.

Lacking that however, I'll simply post my attendance model's prediction for today. In the past I've been surprised that it's been more correct that I've expected. Today is another time when this might be the case. The model says 6042, which seems to high to me. While we are league leaders, the opposition is Millwall, who can hardly be described as big rivals. They do have one draw in their current manager, Willie Donachie, who was at Oldham as assistant manager back in the glory days, about the last time the club was playing quite as well as it is now, and the last time the club won a promotion (16 years ago now!). I wait to see.

Come on Oldham!

League Position Graph

Here's a picture I like a lot right now, it's Oldham's league position after each game this season so far. As seen, Oldham started badly, but the great form displayed since the seventh match of the season (15 wins in 24 matches, just three defeats) has seen Latics sitting top of the pile tonight, making me very happy. Whether or not Oldham remain in top spot I don't know, but I'll enjoy it for the time being!

Get in!

What an afternoon! Well, truth be told, I spent it with a couple of old uni friends, one of whom now has a four month old baby, but while I was doing that, Oldham Athletic beat Tranmere Rovers by one goal to nil to go top of the league! After 30 games, that's quite pleasing. Further, were results to go Oldham's way, by Tuesday night they could be three points clear at the top.

Furthermore, the attendance was 6944, which is just 10 less than what my econometric model forecast for the attendance, at 6954. Quite pleased.

Tranmere Rovers arrive, and Moore is certainly less.

Tomorrow afternoon, Oldham Athletic play host to Tranmere Rovers. It's a grudge match for the supporters, that's for sure. There's never been a huge amount of love between the two sets of supporters, probably stemming not least from Tranmere's proximity to Liverpool, and Oldham's proximity to Manchester.

Any needle has been raised this season, as Oldham's manager of last season, Ronnie Moore, on being sacked by Oldham, is now manager there. Moore never enamoured himself to supporters, regardless of how good or bad a job he did, and has been quite vocal since. Further, both teams are near the top of League One, separated by six points. Oldham are six points the better, and a win will take them top of the table for the first time all season.

The other Moore in Oldham's recent history, former chairman and benefactor Chris Moore, is in the news again. Having thoroughly pursuit selfish interests nearly at the expense of a football club (came in and signed lots of players on big contracts (which his money could fund) to win the praise of supporters, then when it seemed not quite so rosy, pulled out, leaving the contracts in place and a club unable to support them, a club which very nearly died in 2003-4), Mr Moore appears to be being caught up by the Serious Fraud Office for his misdemeanours at his main business interest, Torex, or iSoft as it's now called it seems. See the FT, he was on the front page this morning.

So as far as Oldham are concerned, Moore is certainly less.

So what will happen tomorrow? My forecasting model, which incidentally was not a hundred miles out when forecasting the Bristol City match the other week (6834 predicted, 6924 turned up, wish I'd have put the forecast up before the match that week instead of being in a bad mood!), expects 6954 this coming week. It will be interesting to see if this is a reasonable forecast. It's effectively the random walk forecast, and of course a moving average forecast could be constructed to say whatever one wishes to say. I'm not convinced the Oldham public will turn out in particular larger numbers, even if a win does put the team top of the pile for at least 48 hours. So I'm going with my near 7,000 forecast.

Come on Oldham!