, Oldham boss Curle credits Leeds United with free-kick idea scored by young Whites starlet

Oldham boss Curle credits Leeds United with free-kick idea scored by young Whites starlet

Oldham Athletic are a side struggling to maintain any degree of consistency in League Two. They sit a disappointing 15th in the Sky Bet League Two table.

Yesterday evening they glistened as they thrashed Colchester United 5-2 at Boundary Park – two injury-time goals from Davis Keillor-Dunn adding a gloss to a good Latics performance.

The goal of the game, argue many, was Oldham’s second strike that put them 2-0 up. It was a free-kick netted superbly by on-loan Leeds United youngster Alfie McCalmont.

In words carried by the Oldham Times, Latics boss Keith Curle let on that it was a goal inspired by Leeds United.

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Jumpers in front of goalposts – Oldham routine

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The oft-heard, clichéd ‘training ground routine’ is peddled out every time a free-kick that isn’t just hammer-and-hope is scored. It’s trawled out when goals like the following (below) are scored:

A secondary wall of distractive Oldham players bounce in front of Colchester stopper Dean Gerken in an attempt to unsettle him before darting to be onside before the ball is struck.

It was a tactic that worked, McCalmont’s free-kick settling in the back of the net after clipping the inside of Gerken’s far post.

Oldham Times sports reporter Suzanne Geldard reveals that it was a routine born on the training ground but not at Oldham – at Leeds United.

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Keith Curle comments on free-kick routine

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Latics boss Curle, in Geldard’s Oldham Times article, admits that the idea for the free-kick came from his assistant, Paul Butler who brought the idea with him from Leeds United.

Commenting that he’d “like to take credit“, Curle said he couldn’t as: “It’s Paul Butler’s one. He had an international set piece specialist come over and he did it when he was at Leeds and he said it worked, so he put it on at the training ground.”

It definitely worked and the evidence is there for all to see. Intriguingly, Curle says that there could be more to come admitting that, “there’s a next stage to it as well.

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