"I think we're going to beat a lot of the so-called big hitters this season" - Millington in bullish mood ahead of Oldham clash

The Shaymen lost 2-0 at Boreham Wood on Saturday, failing to build on their opening day win against Bromley.

It's been the opposite for Oldham, who Town beat home and away last season, with The Latics recovering from their 4-0 thrashing at Southend on the opening day to dish out a 5-1 hammering of Aldershot on Saturday.

"Good team, a lot of good individuals, they'll expect to be there or thereabouts come the end of the season," said Town boss Chris Millington, a former coach at Oldham.

"But I think we're a very good team and I think we're going to beat a lot of the so-called big hitters this season, so we'll go there and try to beat Oldham on Tuesday night."

Millington feels tomorrow night's clash will suit his Town side more than Saturday's at Boreham Wood.

"What you'll get at Oldham is much more space, and that's what we operate in," he said.

"We're athletic, we're quick, we're technically a good team, we're able to move the ball well and the more space we've got the more we can hurt teams.

"So we'll be looking to use the space at Boundary Park to stretch them and try and hurt them."

With that in mind, is Millington planning any changes to his starting line-up?

"We focus on every game as it comes up so we're thinking about Oldham now," he said.

"All our energy will now go into assessing them, we've already looked at their game at Southend, which clearly wasn't them.

"We need to review their game against Aldershot, look at their personnel and their shape and how they played.

"They were very uncharacteristic against Southend so we need to see what's changed in that performance before we think about how we'll approach it and what personnel we'll have involved."

Like Bromley and Boreham Wood, Oldham are expected to be fighting for a play-off spot, at least, this season, so the game should be another good marker for where Town's own promotion ambitions lie.

"They'll be right up there," Millington said. "We've got a really good test in August with some very strong teams.

"Obviously we've played two, probably the two teams in Bromley and Boreham Wood who were 'the best of the rest' last season, we've now got Oldham, who are now one of the big spenders, bringing in Football League players and trying to mimic the model that Wrexham have been successful with.

"Oxford City's a different type of challenge because we've got to learn as much as we can about them as quickly as possible, but then you look at Gateshead, spending significant amounts of money bringing players in and we know what type of threat they carry, and Solihull always have a good solid squad and a good team.

"So come the end of August we'll have a clear idea of where our strengths and weaknesses are and what we need to do to be successful this season."

Follow all the action from the game tomorrow night on the Courier's live blog, and the website will also have an on-the-whistle match report and post-match reaction.