Oldham 0-3 United: 31st January 2026

Addicted to winning

There’s been an awful lot of good signs in the last few weeks. A commanding home victory and a clean sheet against a side that had barely left the top three all season? Yes please. How about, recovering from a setback away from home to take all three points late in the game? Sure. Or how about, going behind twice at home and managing to score four goals in 30 minutes? That sounds nice. And I tell you what, as a bonus, what about the test of eleven men parked behind the ball for 90 minutes, and finding a way even if it required an ounce of late luck? I could go for that, absolutely.

Saturday afternoon in Greater Manchester was the latest feather in the Cap Of Good Signs for Neil Harris’ Cambridge United. Pre-game, there was much made of Oldham’s mean defence. After ourselves, they had the best defensive record across the whole division. At this point in the season, that counts for something. Add to that the fact that, in the league, they’d only been beaten at home once since August, and that was at the hands of Walsall. It seemed like their league position of 16th told one story, but their underlying numbers told another.

It wasn’t a game to be underestimated, and even as the form team in the EFL, there was a sense that a win here would really put a marker down. Come roughly 4:45pm, that marker wasn’t just put down, it was buried deep into the turf, covered in concrete, and fossilised. This Cambridge United side is not for moving.