Micky Mellon celebrated a return to winning ways for Oldham Athletic, and his first clean sheet since taking charge.

James Norwood's eighth goal of the season, just after the hour, was enough to separate the teams, despite the many chances that Latics enjoyed.

But the slender scoreline was the only disappointment for Mellon on an afternoon where he praised performances across his team.

"It was a terrific performance, apart from probably the first 15 minutes when we were a bit scrappy, but after that credit to the players - I thought we took major control of the game, passed the ball very well and did a really good professional job at a really difficult place, so we're really pleased with the win," said the Latics boss, who noted his side had opportunities to break the deadlock earlier than Norwood ultimately did.

"Yes, I think we had opportunities to do that, but credit to the players they kept going.

"Sometimes you get disappointed if you're missing chances, you can think maybe it's not going to be our day and you can get sucker punched, but we defended really well as a group and always looked likely that we might catch them at some point and I was delighted to get that goal, but we could have got a couple more.

"Probably the only disappointing thing, keeping standards high, is that we could have scored more goals. We had a lot of chances to really put the game to bed."

But Mellon was pleased to see Norwood add to his tally, after Latics kept the attack alive from a corner that was initially headed clear.

"That's what he's here for, to score goals. That's what he does. I'm pleased that he got his goal because that will keep him happy now," Mellon smiled.

"But I thought across the whole team there were some really good performances.

"We've got a clean sheet, which we've been crying out for. That's the first since I've been here.

"We need more of them, and we need to score the first (goal) more and we did both of that today so I'm really pleased, and pleased for the supporters because I couldn't believe how many were here - such a long, long journey but fantastic support. It was really nice to hear them celebrating at the end and during the game, and enjoying the way that we play. We've got to aim to do that all the time for them."