Mat Hudson believes 2024 has to be the year that Oldham Athletic make home advantage count in their quest for consistency.

Latics ended 2023 on a high with back-to-back wins over Hartlepool United that pushed them to the brink of the play-offs.

The festive double-header included Micky Mellon's first home win in the National League since taking charge at Boundary Park in October.

Indeed, it had been more than three months since Latics had previously celebrated a league win at home.

But now Hudson is confident they can buck that trend and start mirroring their impressive away form on home turf and mount a concerted play-off push.

Asked if a return of 14 points from a possible 36 at home before Saturday, including a six-game winless streak, had become a burden, Hudson said: "It had, yes. We knew that we needed a home win and build on the away form.

"It was a bit of a sigh of relief at the end to finally get that win at home, a nice clean sheet to go with it as well, so all the lads are made up.

"Teams should be fearing coming here - a big crowd, amazing pitch, and that should play in our favour, which it did (on Saturday)."

And the goalkeeper, who was voted man of the match for his sixth clean sheet of the season, feels this could be a turning point in their season.

"I think it was just a case of one home win and we can really kick on and get going," he continued.

"I think it's going to do that. Saturday we looked really solid and really strong.

"We just needed to back that away form up with a home win and all the lads feel now that we can push on at home and really get a run of form going.

"Consistency is the main word that's been used. We can't be winning one then losing one and drawing one or whatever it is, we're a club that needs to be winning more or less every week - the squad that we've got, the fans that we've got, the pitch that we've got. We just need to build on this now.

"It's just the start of things to come, hopefully, and means that Christmas period now is something we can build on.

"The next game is away and we've been good away from home, we'd like to think we're good at home as well now, so we'll look to build on that and go to Dorking in full confidence and looking to get three points again."