Sheffield United teenager George Long will make his first start of the season.
The 18-year-old goalkeeper will step up for Mark Howard, who has been ruled out for three months due to a thigh injury.
Central defender Neill Collins is a major doubt as he is still recovering from a toe infection that forced him to spend two nights in hospital after he played through the pain in the recent win at Hartlepool.
Matt Hill switched to centre-half alongside Harry Maguire last weekend at Leyton Orient, with Marcus Williams returning to the side at left-back and manager Danny Wilson is likely to stick with that back four if Collins fails to make it.
Wilson is more hopeful about the return of striker John Cofie, who missed out last week due to a groin injury, although Nick Blackman, who scored his fifth goal of the season at Orient, is likely to partner Dave Kitson again up front.
The Blades, unbeaten in the league this season, have drawn their last three home matches.
Oldham will be without captain Dean Furman.
Furman is on international duty with South Africa and boss Paul Dickov has confirmed fellow midfielder James Wesolowski will take the armband in his absence.
Elsewhere, centre-backs James Tarkowski (hip) and Jean-Yves Mvoto (ankle) face late fitness tests, but Dickov is optimistic over their involvement after the duo stepped up training over the course of this week.
He said: "Jean and Tarky trained a little bit on Wednesday, a little bit more on Thursday and will have a fitness test with us on Friday. We're hopeful that both of them will be fit."
United head into the game unbeaten with Latics eyeing a repeat of their dramatic 3-2 comeback win at Bramall Lane last season - not that Dickov feels that result will have much bearing on events this weekend.
"The personnel has completely changed," he added. "Even if you look to the team on Saturday there were seven of them that weren't here last year. I don't think we can take into consideration what went on there last year because they've had a few changes in personnel as well."
