Latics are just 45 games away from the League One promised land

The 2-0 victory over Port Vale is just the latest in a long, long line of reasons to be optimistic

The close-season started with some very eye-catching signings. Never mind that the business was done early, to the enormous credit of the Mysterious Recruitment Department. The most impressive thing was that the strategy was clear: find players for the positions we need to fill and upgrade where possible. That sounds simple, intuitive even, but for one reason and another it just didn’t happen in the pre-Rothwells-Schofield-Royle era. That’s five reasons why it happens now, by the way.

The Mysterious Recruitment Department functions year-round, probably 24/7, playing an essential role. My guess is they have data points for evaluating targets (and for comparing targets with current players). You can shuffle the data to form a series of longlists (one based on price, another based on fitness, and so on). As a result, Latics knew what they were going to do before the window opened, and had fallbacks and contingencies well before they became necessary.

The heart-starter for me, however, was not the speed and range of signings and their neat internal logic, but the aerial shot of the Chapel Road training facility published the day before the players arrived for pre-season. Junior Pickering and his staff and volunteers were awarded an average score of 12.46 out 15 for their matchday groundskeeping last season, which was one of the highest scores in League Two on one of its most uncooperative grounds. The Chapel Road surfaces – two full grass pitches and a smaller artificial one – are 15s out of 15. They look like they’ve been cut with scissors and clippers rather than a mower.

The Chapel Road buildings have had a refurb too. A new gym, an indoor space for the players to eat and meet, spruced up changing rooms. It’s a League One facility for a squad that screams promotion challenge, and that quietly suggests a title challenge.

The season’s objective, as stated by Micky Mellon himself in an interview with BBC Radio Manchester, is promotion (via any route necessary). In his very next breath, Mellon said he’d also be happy with a season if the fans go away happy that their team has given it their all, as they did last season. No one can gainsay the great man, but you are not obliged to take his happy-if-we-try caveat all that seriously.

The relationship between the club suits and the club tracksuits is superb, whereas last season there was the constant niggle of whether Mellon would sign a new contract (and whether Latics would extend it). This season everyone knows where they are and what's happening. There is guiding intelligence, a commonly understood aim.

Joe Royle came to Oldham at the end of a starred playing career and became a much-beloved part of the fabric of the club – as he still is. Micky Mellon, with his two-year contract to add to the three successful seasons he’s already had at the club, could well achieve that same exalted status. This season had all the hallmarks of a successful one before a ball was kicked. A 2-0 home win in front of a massive crowd showed that the only thing between Latics and League One is the small matter of 45 games of football, or 4,050 minutes plus stoppage time, against 800 or so opposition players and managers…adjudicated by 45 referees, 45 fourth officials and 90 linos.

It's in the bag, right?