Karl Robinson encouraged by ‘excellent’ Fabio Borini cameo on Salford debut

Karl Robinson was excited by Fabio Borini’s debut in Salford’s 1-0 victory against Greater Manchester rivals Oldham in League Two.

The former Liverpool and Sunderland striker, who signed on Friday, came off the bench for the last nine minutes.

And in his brief cameo, he gave Robinson enough encouragement that he will prove to be a valuable signing – on and off the pitch.

Robinson said: “Fabio was excellent when he came on. Just look at the teams he has played for: Sunderland, Liverpool, Milan and Roma. He has had a brilliant career.

“We are incredibly lucky to have him, not just on the football pitch, but bringing a wealth of experience to the club.”

Daniel Udoh gave Salford a 14th-minute lead, scrambling home the ball after team-mate Kadeem Harris hit the left post with a penalty.

And Oldham’s hopes of hitting back were dashed by Will Sutton’s 64th-minute dismissal for bringing down Kelly N’Mai when he was through on goal.

Victory ended Salford’s three-match losing run in the league.

And Robinson added: “Today, I thought we showed tremendous grit and steely determination.

“On the back of losing three games on the bounce, you take any sort of winning chance.

“We denied them opportunities and created plenty of our own.

“If you were to look at the expected goals we created in that game, I’m sure it’s through the roof.

“If any moment epitomised our performance, it was the penalty where we hit the post and ended up scrambling one in.

“I always knew that Oldham were going to bring a challenge to us and I thought we were really good in our out-of-possession shape, which allowed us to deal with their attacking play.”

Micky Mellon conceded that his Oldham team did not play well enough to get anything from the game, but fumed over the performance of referee Jacob Miles.

He said: “We were poor. We had to show more urgency and needed to be better with the ball.

“Effort-wise, I couldn’t fault us. We had a good go, but we needed to show a lot more quality to try and make it more difficult for Salford.

“Our defending for both the penalty in the first half and the sending off in the second was really poor. Salford’s attackers should not be able to get between our centre-halves that easily.

“I was surprised to see a red card shown. I thought the game needed a stronger and better official. The referee was as bad as you can get for a game like this.

“When we went down to 10 men, we rallied. We tried to keep two men up front and be bold and we got our opportunity but could not take it.”