The end of season post-mortem began with another stalemate for draw specialists Oldham, this time against local rivals Rochdale at Boundary Park.

In a performance which was almost the opposite of the swashbuckling, attacking display which yielded four goals at Spotland earlier in the season in Micky Mellon’s first game as manager, once again - as in recent weeks - we never really looked like doing enough to get the victory, despite going ahead in the first few minutes through a tidy goal by Hallam Hope.

This is one of the things we are going to have to improve if we are to make a promotion challenge next season, really piling the pressure on sides until they crack.

We’ve had this all season at home where sides come in the biggest game of their season and really up their performance, and we haven’t been able to deal with it.

Rochdale were clearly happy to take a point away with them, and through the whole second half we never really looked like we were going to find a winner, despite having the majority of possession and territory.

This point is really hit home by the superb cross that was fired across goal in stoppage time by Oli Hammond and not one man threw themselves at it to get the decisive touch that would have diverted it into the goal.

Indeed, there were a number of occasions throughout the game where we had only one man, or on occasion none at all, in the box. When we had to win to give ourselves any tiny chance of extending our season and putting pressure on the sides above us, this again is disappointing.

In a wide-ranging interview with the club’s official media on Friday, Mellon spoke on a number of issues which go to next season, two of which were recruitment and mentality.

For me, these go hand in hand.

Most of our players are good enough in terms of football quality, but some of them don’t have the mentality to match and to enable them to perform to the required standard.

Whilst we clearly lack in certain areas of the park, and we hope that right back and the middle of the park can be solved in the summer at a minimum, it is vital that the players that come in bring with them the required mentality to represent this fantastic club of ours and the expectations that come with that.

Mellon has regularly spoken of those expectations and I’m sure this will be on his to-do list as he looks to get us into the promotion spots next season.