Oldham Athletic will start the season without last season’s top scorer James Norwood, and striker Joe Garner, manager Micky Mellon has confirmed.
The pair have missed pre-season in almost its entirety due to lengthy injuries, with Norwood tearing a calf muscle on the first day back, while Garner has had surgery on his shoulder.
While The Oldham Times last month revealed the pair could be ruled out for the season opener, at home to Braintree Town on Saturday (kick-off 3pm), Mellon had been reluctant to put a timeframe on their return to first team action.
However, with the new 2024/25 season just days away, the Scot has admitted neither are fit enough to feature this weekend.
“Norwood, no chance for a couple of weeks at least,” said Mellon, adding: “Joe Garner, no chance for a couple of weeks.”
The situation has left Mellon scouring the transfer market for back-up, leading to talks with former Latics striker Matt Smith before the 35-year-old opted against a return to Boundary Park to pursue a business interest outside of football.
“It’s going to be a really long season and we need to get some more bodies into the group to help us keep moving it along, particularly in the National League with the all the cups involved and things like that and the travelling and that, you need a powerful squad,” said the Oldham boss.
“We’ve played three League One teams here (in pre-season) and went all out with the boys that we thought would have a chance of starting for us.
“They’ve really given a good account of themselves in all three games. It is only pre-season and some of the games we went into we didn’t do much work and just said to the boys ‘go and have a charge around and get yourselves fit’ and all the rest of it.
“It’s pleasing to go into next week with a full quota of players, apart from the couple of injured boys but that’s been all pre-season now. We’ve missed them.”
Josh Kay, a midfielder who signed with Latics in the summer, will also be out against Braintree as he recovers from a hamstring injury that kept him out of the last three friendlies.
“I think we’re talking about a week to 10 days when he comes back in,” Mellon added.
“He’s a strong, powerful player that we can really do with back into the group again because he is certainly one that we would want on the bench or starting for us that we know can hold the level of performance that would hopefully make us successful.”
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