NICKY Adams says the impact of Oldham Athletic supporters on the team cannot be underestimated - and that the players need them now more than ever as the battle to beat the drop intensifies.

Latics go into the Easter weekend level on points with Stevenage and Barrow, and are kept out of the bottom two on goal difference.

Fans have flocked back to Boundary Park since John Sheridan returned for his sixth spell in charge, while owner Abdallah Lemsagam’s announcement that he was prepared to sell the club also prompted supporters who had been boycotting home games to go back and get behind the team in an effort to help keep them up.

And they are efforts that are appreciated by everyone in the dressing room.

“They’ve come back in their numbers and the support we’ve had at home and away, they’ve been fantastic and I can’t thank them enough,” said Nicky Adams.

“It’s unbelievable running out to that reception.”

Latics have been backed by big followings all season, and after a sell-out away end at Stevenage for the survival six-pointer, there were 1,516 backing them at Vale Park on Saturday.

And Adams says their passion was something he could relate too.

“I’m a footballer but I’m a football fan too.

“I’m a northern boy, I know what it means to these clubs and these fans, they follow their team everywhere, big football clubs,” said the experience wide man, who hails from Bolton.

“I appreciate it and the lads do. They’ve just got to stick in there and hopefully we can finish the right side of the line and keep this club in the Football League. That’s the main thing.”

The first step will be bouncing back from a 3-2 defeat at Port Vale, where Latics pushed the promotion challengers close in twice coming back from behind in the first half, before succumbing to a second half winner.

“It was tough to take but performance wise the gaffer said he was proud of us, how we performed. We’ve got to take it on the chin and move on,” said the 35-year-old.

“They’re a team flying high in the league, but if you didn’t know the league table you’d have said that it was two teams going for promotion in terms of how we played.

“I thought we played very well, had a lot of chances.

“We’re disappointed in the goals conceded, we could have stopped them at source, especially so early in the game. But we showed good character to come back against a team flying high.

“They’ve been dominating teams and I think overall we were the better team in terms of chances created, it just wouldn’t fall for us, and little decisions didn’t go our way.

“We’ve just got to dust ourselves down. We knew it was going to go right to the end, we’ve got five big games to play and if we keep playing like that hopefully we’ll get the results we need.”