Very Shrew'd Indeed vs Shrewsbury (L2)

I love night games, home or away. They have a special atmosphere that somehow can never be duplicated when it's daylight. For some time (it seemed like years at the time) we couldn't win a home match on a Tuesday night, but that run was ended a little time ago.

I turned up hoping for the best. We have been playing well and despite the blip against Northampton on Saturday the confidence running through the team should be running high. It has been encouraging to see how well we have been playing recently, and success breeds success.

The bronze Ox statue in front of the stadium had recently been vandalised by someone who thought they were an artist. It was painted bright pink, but rather than mope about it the club had made a virtue out of it and had invited a Breast Cancer charity to collect - pink being the charity colour. Inside the stadium, Ollie the Ox was wearing a fetching pink shirt to match, and next Saturday has been designated a 'pink' day - so wear something pink for the Cheltenham game. A very very good response from the club. Whoever daubed the statue had better hope they are never named and shamed - there are 6,000 people who would like to have a quiet word with them!

Shewsbury would probably be a tough nut to crack, being fourth in the league and according to the radio unbeaten away since October. Not quite so impressive when you realised that this only meant 5 matches though! The Oxford team was unchanged from the starting lineup at Northampton - having a settled team is always a good thing, especially when they are winning... Two of our team (Asa Hall and James Constable) had been at Shrewsbury earlier in their careers, perhaps they'd put one over on their old team?

We won the toss, attacking the fence end first half, the match started and after a Constable chance, Shrewsbury won three corners in quick succession. The East Stand held their collective breath and sure enough from one of them a Shrews player got their head on the ball but fortunately it skewed just wide of Ryan Clarke's left hand post. Phew. Almost a repeat of the Southend/Bradford/Northampton incidents. It still needs sorting.

However, something else that needed sorting was Asa Hall's lack of goals. After ten minutes or so, that was sorted. Beano got to the Shrews goalline, pulled the ball back beautifully and Hall whacked it in. Brilliant. Oxford were well on top, and kept the pressure up for a while after the goal without looking hugely threatening. The Shrews then started to get back into it a bit and very undeservedly equalised after half an hour with a deflected shot that gave Clarke no chance. But this Oxford is made of sterner stuff than some previous teams, and went straight back on the attack. This adventurous approach looked to have paid off when the ref blew for a penalty a couple of minutes before half time. Batt seemed to have been brought down in the penalty area by a Shrews defender, and the ref pointed to the spot. From the other end of the pitch in the East Stand, it looked dubious, and so it proved. The Shrews players went and talked to the linesman, the ref evenually ambled over to do the same and the penalty changed into a corner instead. Drat. Probably the right decision, but the ref (who was veryinconsistent all night) should have gone to talk to his lino to start with. The ball had gone dead, so he hadn't had to stop play.

Half time came, and the team were applauded off at 1-1. The ref got a few boos. The half time crossbar challenge was a five from the left side vs five from the right side affair (it's nice to see that someone at the club reads this blog! Hello, whoever you are) - and did indeed generate more interest than recent affairs. That ended at 1-1 as well, so honour was satisfied. If there was one thing that seemed unlikely it was that the main event of the evening would finish all square. We had as usual looked a bit sketchy at the back and at times dangerous up front.

I thought the second half would be closely contested, but I turned out to be wrong (not for the first time). You could say that Shrewsbury never got going - or you could say that we simply bossed them out of the game. A free kick from MacLean and a good Asa Hall header from a Mclaren corner both failed to register before Beano took revenge on the club that rejected him with a nicely taken goal after an hour. 2-1 and 30 minutes to go.

We continued to press, Shrewsbury continued to create very little. Then CW introduced Alfie Potter. Suddenly we looked even more threatening against a tiring defence. Sometimes pace alone is enough, and Alfie has more than just pace. Shrewsbury had to try to look for an equaliser, but every time they went forward we nicked the ball and gave it to Alfie. He motored forwards, with the other forwards straining to keep up with him. This resulted in Shrewsbury being pinned back, and a host of half chances being created. With about a quarter of an hour to go, Constable got the ball on the right hand side of the Shrew's penalty area and slid the ball across the goalie and into the left hand side of the goal. YESSS!

The last fifteen minutes of the match were very comfortable - it hasn't been that many times this season that we have had the luxury of a 2 goal cushion going into the last knockings of the match. If any team was going to score another goal in that time, it was Oxford.

Man of the Match (is this a new thing? I don't remember it being announced before?) Beano went off with a couple of minutes to go, to a great ovation - which was repeated when the match finished. An excellent result against what was touted as a decent team. Up into the playoff places with confidence on the up and another home match on Saturday.

The trip home was long - ages to get out of the car park, then a closed road added half an hour to the trip - but since we'd won, I didn't mind too much!

Random thoughts:
Still no clean sheet (21 matches). But does it matter if we keep winning? I think it does, but maybe I'm wrong!
A fit-again Potter added a whole lot in the last quarter hour of the match - more than LSD did on Saturday, although admittedly in different circumstances.
Re the pink Ox - well done to the club for turning a negative into a real positive.
Our forwards are a real handful for opposition defences!
18 matches since a draw - is that getting to be some sort of record? Incidentally, of those 18 we have won 9 and lost 9 (27 points), If we had drawn them all and remained unbeaten then we would have 18 points.