Midfielder Clucas feels Oldham Athletic can 'do a Wrexham'

Latics are part of a leading pack pushing for promotion this season thanks to a run of just two defeats in 18 National League games.

And Clucas believes that if they can achieve it this season, there will be no stopping them next, as was the case with Tranmere under Mellon in 2018 and 2019, and most recently Wrexham and Stockport County.

"When I came in for the first week of training I said to people outside the club that if this team can get up I think they could do a Stockport or a Wrexham and go again," said the former Hull City, Swansea and Stoke midfielder.

"It's got everything that you need to bounce back up.

"I've played in this league before and it's one of the most difficult leagues to get out of with only being one automatic and one in the play-offs. It's going to be difficult, there are a lot of teams fighting for it, but we've just got to keep winning.

"We've got to concentrate on ourselves and if we can keep picking three points up and playing like we did (on Saturday) then there's no reason why we can't get out."

And Clucas believes Saturday's win demonstrated what a force to be reckoned with Latics can be this season.

"It was good, very good," he said.

"I still think we can do some things better in the game, keep the ball better. I think they gave us a lot more time than we realised and we could have kept the ball a little bit better but at the end of the day it's three points and a great 4-0 victory.

"We knew their strengths, a difficult team to play against. We know they're going to put the ball in the box from everywhere, the keeper takes free kicks from halfway and shoves it straight into the box, you've got the long throws from three or four of the players and you've seen the lad that came on and caused a few problems with an even longer throw.

"But I thought the defenders were brilliant and really stuck to it."

Sam Clucas congratulates hat-trick hero James Norwood (Image: Phill Smith)

Clucas added: "Getting an early lead put them on the back foot a little bit. I think they wanted to come out and try to start fast and quieten the crowd and put some pressure on us but it didn't work out like that, we scored early and tried to build on that.

"We didn't want to settle for one or two, we wanted to try to get four, five or six."

And Clucas says they have a not-so-secret weapon in James Norwood.

"He's a goalscorer. He always has been and always will be. He knows where the goal is and again he proved that (on Saturday)," said the midfielder, in recognition of his team-mate's hat-trick.

"I think he's been brilliant since he came in, he's taken his chance because obviously big Mikey's been on fire but he's been injured for a couple of weeks and James has had his chance.

"He started at Tranmere and I thought he was excellent in that game, and I think he was really good (against Tamworth).

"In every league you need a goalscorer to try to get out of the league and teams know that and that's why they get paid the big money and that's why teams spend the big money on the strikers because it's the strikers that get you out of the league.

"If James gets 20 goals this season then certainly we'll be up there with all the other players chipping in as well."