I didn't see THAT coming vs Chesterfield (League 2)

It's a funny thing being an Oxford supporter. It either seems to be utter despair or unrestrained joy.

I must admit I wasn't expecting much joy as I thought about going to last night's game. Over 100 miles up the M1 in the rush hour, to play the top team in the league on a freezing cold Tuesday night, with us in a dreadful run of form. But it's when the team is struggling that they really need the support, so I left work half an hour early and made my way to the soon-to-be-frozen Northern wastelands.

I'd never been to Chesterfield before, and the twisted church tower after which their football team are nicknamed is quite a sight and, in my slightly pessimistic frame of mind, looked rather sinister - like something out of the Wicker Man. The locals kept up the 'alienate the strangers' theme by charging me a fiver to park the car for a couple of hours. Gee, thanks. I never knew Chesterfield was in central London. The clumsily named B2net Stadium however is a completely different kettle of fish. Modern and well designed, but with a bit of character. Very impressive. Not so impressive was that in the days that we can smash atoms together to produce fundamental particles, it is beyond the catering at Chesterfield to produce a black coffee. Surely not too much to ask.

The away end gradually filled until I'd estimate that we had somewhere around 300 there. Which I thought was pretty good, all things considered.

I think we started out in some sort of 4-1-4-1 with Maclean starting as the loan, lone striker, with Batt coming in for Purkiss and Hall and Heslop starting.

It didn't start terribly well. Chesterfield were quick and tricky, with lots of movement off the ball. Their quick one touch football, especially between their forwards, was very dangerous, and they carved out several openings that they failed to take, until a deflected shot after about a quarter of an hour finally beat the excellent Clarke. It looked to me as if we had been told to try and not conceed early, and as a result had fallen into a very defensive way of playing. There was quite a lot of hoofing up to Maclean, who was working his socks off but to little effect. He managed to get his head to quite a lot of them, producing lovely flick ons that never had a chance of being effective since there was nobody within 20 yards of him. I apologise to those near me for bellowing 'get two up front, Wilder' fairly loudly several times.

Anyway, once we had conceded we seemed to relax a bit, and actually started to play some football. It was still a bit jittery along the back line, with some pointless dithering on the ball at times, and we still looked fairly toothless in attack (although Maclean took a good free kick that tested Chesterfields keeper, 'wheres your caravan' Lee), but as the half went on the passing got better and, miracle of miracles, people started moving off the ball. Jake was subbed by Harry Worley due to injury just before the break.


Half time came with us one down and the U's fans in reasonably good heart. We were losing, but the performance was much improved. The formation was still a buggers muddle, Craddock was still playing in the wrong place and a few long passes were still a bit 'hopeful' (football supporter speak for useless), but the ball was on the floor more and we were keeping it for longer. I decided not to have another cup of instant coffee and milk powder (yum!). If I had done so I might have thought it had been spiked with something stronger than suger, as when we came out for the second half...

4-4-2.

Blimey.

TC moved up front with the tireless Maclean, Heslop and Hall went into the wide midfielder places. Only two full backs! Oddly enough (not) this formation worked much better than the Burton experiment. Now we were playing in a formation that gave us more solidity in midfield and more threat up front. Suddenly we looked like a different and much better team. Heslop had a good chance that he shot straight at some bloke selling lucky heather, but it was no surprise that we equalised about ten minutes into the second half. Some excellent work from Heslop, then Maclean crossed for his strike partner Craddock who headed the ball in beautifully. My intellectual musings on the value of having two strikers were rudely interrupted by 300 people going loopy.

We then took charge of the game. Against the team who were top of the division. Perhaps I did have a dodgy coffee after all and just couldn't remember. We kept possession, giving the Spireites the runaround. They still looked dangerous when they got the ball, we just didn't give it to them very often. Looking lively up front all game, Maclean got his just reward when after 70 minutes or so, some excellent play down the left (sorry I can't remember who it was) gave Maclean the chance he had been waiting for. More jubilation amoung the faithful.

I think the first thing we all did once we had settled back down was to have a quick look at the watch. Twenty minutes to go, plus some injury time. Could we hang on? For the first ten minutes for so, we actually looked as if we might score again, but as always happens to any team defending a lead away from home, we gradually got pushed back. Chesterfield slowly got back to the clever play they had started the match with, abandoning the high crosses they had been trying during our period of superiority. (Clarke had just gobbled all of those up, easily). Beano and Josh Payne came on for Heslop and Craddock - both of whom had played their part well. As time went on, all you could hear was the sound of 300 sets of nails being nibbled simultaneously. Not true, actually. We kept up a decent level of noise. Chesterfield pressed, and had one glorious chance to equalise right at the death. Once that hit the post and went away, we all sensed that it would be our night. The last couple of minutes seemed to take an hour, but eventually the (reasonably decent) ref ended it. Mass celebrations from players and supporters alike.

As I drove back, the spire looked less sinister, and more laughable. They need to build a nice new straight one. The journey seemed to take about ten minutes, as it always does when you've won. A ten day break, then a match at home against Barnet. I wish it was on Saturday.

My conclusions for the night:

We need to sign Maclean. At all costs. He works hard, and is very effective.
4-4-2 is the way to go. We looked so much better.
Clarke must be the best goalkeeper in the division.
The Oxford away support is magnificent.