The hits keep coming! I’ve said before that Phil Parkinson has an impressive success rate in the transfer market, and his recent signings illustrate that point perfectly.

The quality of last Saturday’s annihilation of Oldham Athletic is undeniable. When you consider the contribution made by Parkinson’s mid-season signings, it’s clear another step forward has been taken in the evolution of this team.

At the end of last season we paid for a lack of squad depth. Now, we have the most astonishing range of options.

Here’s a little exercise to try to illustrate the quality Parkinson has accumulated. Pick what you think is our strongest eleven, then pick your second eleven. Then consider two question: would the second eleven finish in the play-off spots of the National League? And how good are the players who didn’t make it into either selection?

Assuming all players are fit, players who might miss out include Mark Howard, who has been our first choice for the vast majority of the season; Reece Hall-Johnson and Bryce Hosannah, who are clearly two of the best wing-backs in the division; Liam MacAlinden, who has been a massively versatile option for us; and Jake Bickerstaff, who has made terrific improvements to his game this season. That’s a lot of quality!

Going back to last Saturday, we were treated to some fine performances from players who joined during the current campaign.

Eoghan O’Connell is a real class act, and quite apart from his accomplished defending, his use of the ball is exemplary. He enjoyed coming forward to exploit the space left by Oldham’s supine positioning, and played a cute reverse pass to set the move for the fourth goal in motion.

Ryan Barnett has developed into a real favourite with the crowd already. The Latics’ defence were terrified of his pace, and his fast feet are mesmerising. That’s a good thing when you’re watching him from the stand, but not so great when you’re an opposing full back looking to jockey him away from the danger area.

Andy Cannon has become indispensable in a very short space of time. His presence at the base of our midfield trio enabled us to maintain pressure on Oldham as he read the game perfectly and ensured we penned our opponents in by mopping up any hopeful clearances and swiftly recirculating it to his team mates.

Ben Foster’s a late season signing as well, of course, but while his arrival is quite a coup, we can hardly credit him for Saturday’s performance! After all, Oldham only really ventured forwards once, and unleashed an absolutely unstoppable header on goal.

Chatting to Foster after the game he acknowledged the excellence of his team mates, summing up his performance by rightly suggesting, “All I could do was clap!” That sums our dominant performance perfectly.

We’ve been superb all season, but the recent improvements to the squad have taken us up another level again: if we can replicate the level of performance we showed last Saturday in our remaining six games, we’ll be laughing.

I suggested at the start of the season that getting the authorities to drop the transfer window rules which restricted us last time round was a massive boost. I think we can now see just how true that is.