Oldham boss John Sheridan is braced for a crunch clash with Carlisle

The clubs have traded places in recent weeks, with Carlisle replacing Oldham in the drop zone, only for the Cumbrians to leapfrog Latics again.

Sheridan’s men go into tomorrow’s crunch clash in the bottom two, with Carlisle three points clear after back-to-back wins under returning manager Paul Simpson.

"In an ideal world I'd like both of us to stay up, ourselves and Carlisle, but 100 per cent I want to beat them on Saturday then they look after themselves,” said Sheridan, who had a seven-month spell in charge of Carlisle in 2018-19 before joining Chesterfield.

“I’ve got a lot of fondness for the club, I really really enjoyed it when I was there, but I'm only bothered about us.

“They'll come wanting to beat us so we've got to make sure that doesn't happen.

"They've won the last two, they've got a new manager and they've got a bit of a spring in their step, and they're coming to a team who are in and around them in a similar position, so I expect a really tough game.

"I'm only focused on ourselves because if we do what we've done of late we've got a very good chance of winning.”

With so much at stake it is arguably Latics’ biggest game of the season so far.

"Yes because it's the next one,” said Sheridan.

"They're all tough games. The lads have been brilliant since I came in, I couldn't ask any more of them, but we've got to continue it over a longer period.”

Sheridan is unbeaten in seven since returning to take charge in January, and goes into the game having picked up draws from long trips to Colchester and Crawley.

He is hoping to turn those points into wins, but said: “If we draw the game we draw the game. We're going to go all out to win the game, we'd never go out to draw the game, we've got to go out to try to win and that's what we're going to do, 100 per cent.

"If we end up drawing it's a point, it's another point on board, but we're going all out to win.”