Hyde United 0 Oldham Athletic 2

The Latics kicked off the first of their pre-season games at non-league Hyde United on Monday night. A crowd of 817 witnessed the visitors cruise to a comfortable 2-0 success at Ewen Fields. New manager Dave Penney was quietly pleased with the workman-like performance of his team which included several trialists, many of them unnamed. Danny Whitaker put the Latics ahead with a fine strike early on and Lewis Alessandra added another before the break. Things got changed around for the second half with a completely different team taking the field other than trialist goalkeeper James Spencer who kept his place due to him not having much to do in the first half. Dean Brill was left waiting for his Latics debut. Chris O'Grady was unlucky as he hit the woodwork three times but the visitors should really have run up a higher score, considering the opposition.

Penney told the official website, "While it is always good to pick up a win, this stage of the season is all about fitness. And on that score I was more than happy. We have been working on our shape in training for the last week and again it looked like things were coming together. We weren't as fluent [in the second half], but neither were we in any trouble. When you introduce new faces into a side it takes time to get to know each other and how they play. That process has now started and I am confident it will all come together over the next couple of weeks."

Penney commented about the trialist keeper Spencer by adding, "James has a lot of experience with Stockport and Rochdale and looked like being a top keeper at one stage, but he has lost his way. It was probably a bit unfair last night as James didn't have a save to make. He probably wanted shots flying, but I wasn't really able to judge him."