WHEN Keith Curle was reminiscing about his four-year tenure at Carlisle United the startling similarities between the situations he inherited at both Brunton and Boundary Park were hard to ignore.

"It was a club that had to unite,” Curle said of Carlisle, who he took charge of in September 2014.

“There were lots of distractions regarding the ownership of the football club, the running of the football club, the investment in the football club that was something that had to get monitored.

"When I took over the football club they'd just been relegated, four points adrift and everything was doom and gloom.”

While Latics’ league position was not as dire when he arrived last March, it was - and is - chaotic behind the scenes.

A classy yet combative centre half in his playing days, the former Manchester City captain clearly does not shirk a challenge in management either.

And at Carlisle, he got results.

“Stayed up the first year, comfortably, and then had three top 10 finishes and a play-off semi-final finish as well,” he said. “And with that there was a lot of work done behind the scenes by a lot of people who probably didn't get the credit but it was very much appreciated by myself.

But regardless of the success he experienced in adversity in Cumbria, it did beg the question why he would want to put himself through it all again.

"I had a good understanding of where Carlisle had been previously and what the owner at the time, Andrew Jenkins, and the chairman - his ambition and his desire for the football club and I bought into that,” Curle explained.

"When I came to the football club, I've got a good understanding - probably because of its locality and the amount of times I've played Oldham - I know what the potential is at Oldham and I think I've got a good opportunity.

“We're on a difficult path at the minute but it's one that I know when we all get in stride together we'll be getting eight, nine, 10 thousand people in the stadium and it will be a force to be reckoned with again.”

With a number of fans opting to stay away from Boundary Park while Abdallah Lemsagam remains owner, allied to Latics’ struggles at the bottom of League Two, and poor home form over the last two seasons, those kind of attendance figures would seem a long way off.

Yet Curle remains admirably optimistic.

He added: “Sometimes you have to take those steps, put the foundations in place and surround yourself with good people, good players, and vitally important, good support.”