Consistent Inconsistency (vs Crewe L2)

Hi all -

After last week's heroics at Aldershot, I set off for Grenoble Road (see, I remembered!) in good spirits. Although in the back of my mind, I couldn't help remembering the match at Gresty Road, where we had failed to convert early chances and had lost the game, ending a four match unbeaten run.

Never mind, it was a lovely winter's day (in a not very wintery winter), not cold enough for frozen pitch or travel worries and not windy. Wind always makes Grenoble Road an uncomfortable place to be, and in the winter makes it seem a lot colder. Wind chill, I guess.

So, down to Oxford in good time, yet again failing to get into the east stand car park. Pah. I'll have to try alternative parking elsewhere - I hate the wait to get out of the car park after the match. Listening to RadOx in the car, our team was unchanged from Aldershot - which of course meant that Beano was still with us. A good thing in my view. Really we need to add a striker, not get rid of one, or get a new one in to replace one. I suppose Deane Smalley was supposed to be that new striker, but that's one signing that hasn't worked out at all. If there's a lesson there I suppose it's to look at a strikers record over his career, not just one 'purple patch' part of the previous season.

Three o'clock approached and the teams came out. Crewe looked small and nippy, with a couple of tallish centre backs. We lost the toss and started out by kicking towards the East Stand. A note to the PA announcer - it hasn't been the Oxford Mail stand for some years now. If they want the publicity, maybe they could pay for it? And we were off...

... and started like a train. Potter had the first shot, but it wasn't hit with any real venom and the Crewe keeper made an easy save. Constable was unfairly penalised for daring to challenge for the ball shoulder to shoulder when in a good position. The ref blew early, Constable put the ball in the net. No goal, and to be fair the Crewe players had stopped once they'd heard the whistle. It's a stretch to call it a disallowed goal. But it did show what the referee's intentions were. And that was to have a game of non-contact football. The slightest touch resulted in a free kick, a player fell over: a free kick. Looking at the stats, he managed to find 17 free kicks in a game where there were very few that anyone else would have givem. The only meaty challeng was by Andy Whing in the second half (for which he was rightly booked).

Anyway, we kept attacking, Crewe loking minimally dangerous on the break - although Clarke had to push one over from a long range shot, and a Crewe player missing with a free header at the back post from the resulting corner. The back post has been a weak area for us all season to be honest, I am sure we can all remember gaols and near-goals we have conceded in that area. In general we were still on the front foot, Leven's shot after a quarter of an hour looked goal bound until Alfie got in the way,and a lovely move a few minutes later produced a shot over the bar from Potter. It looked like only a matter of time until we scored. Reading that back, I relaise that I haven't mentioned JPP. He was the dominant force in the attack. Winning flick ons that his team mates were just too slow to latch on to, providing passes, holding the ball up. Definitely the pick of the men in yellow.

There were a couple of amusing moments on the North Stand side of the pitch in this early section of the day. Firstly, Davis went down in a very convincing imitation of slow motion, landing on top of a Crewe player, and secondly when a Crewe player was taking the ball out of defence, tried to clear it up field and got a wicked bobble which meant it looked as if he'd just passed the ball straight out of play. Not side splitting maybe, but you have to take your amusement where you can!

But let's give some credit to Crewe. Having weathered a quite considerable storm, they started to play their way out of trouble. Crewe have a tradition of trying to play football the right way, moving the ball quickly, and on the floor with lots of off the ball movement. As the half progressed, they got this game going much better. The chances stopped coming for Oxford as we found it icreasingly difficult to get hold of the ball in midfield. And when we did, the Crewe players were all over us like a rash. Closing down quickly, our (not very fast) midfield had no time on the ball and provided absolutley no quality ball to the forwards. Heslop did have one shot from distance just before half time, but once more it was straight at the keeper.

The ref blew to end a frustrating half. Started well, faded badly. Horribly reminiscent of the away match earlier in the season. But at least this time we weren't out of it at half-time! The halftime entertainment was the usual crossbar challenge, an odd mixture of a big bloke with 'a size too small' replica shirt on, a young girl with very skinny legs and unsuitably soft footwear, a Bristol Rovers supporter, a one-legged Chinese pirate and PRB in a tutu. I may not have got all those right. Some people hit the bar, others didn't. Brilliant... The other source of half time entertainment is the other scores coming up on the scoreboard. This time they were so late coming up that we barely got to see them before the teams were back out for the second half.

If we were hoping for a repeat of the first 20 minutes of the first half, we were in for a disappointment. Crewe settled into a 4-5-1/5-4-1 formation, defying us to get past them and using their speed to threaten on the break. The yellows looked completely bereft of ideas. The crosses from Batt and Davis were terrible, mostly hitting the first man or sailing over the penalty area by some diistance. Driving runs through the midfield? There weren't any. Pittman had a shot, but it was blocked. As time went on, the Oxford passing got more and more ragged, going to a red shirt as often as a yellow one. Hoofing up the middle lead to absolutley nothing other than the heads of the two Crewe centre backs.

After about an hour, Whing went off to be replaced by Mclaren. I am presuming he went off because he had been booked, because there was no injury to him and he'd been doing a decent defensive job in front of the defence. Mclaren added less than nothing, I am afraid. His passing was terrible, and he was much less effective defensively than Whing had been. That left a hole in front of our defence that Crewe started to exploit. There were quite a few times when they played the ball out of defence quickly, two or three of them passing the ball nicely. On occasion, it took a last-ditch challenge to deny them a shooting chance.

It looked as if JPP had strained something trying to make an interception, and although he played on, he was replaced as part of a double substitution with about fifteeen minutes left. He went off and Smalley came on. Heslop made way for Tonkin. Presumably the idea was for Davis to move forward, with Tonkin at left back, Constable and Smalley up front. Not a bad idea. Except that over on the other side of the pitch, neither Batt nor Potter were having very good days. Potter kept getting the ball, running straight into a Crewe player and losing it. Batt kept leaving the right back area vacant, staying forward too much for a 4-4-2. Davis, freed to go further forward, had a shot deflected just wide, but at the other end the Oxford defence was getting sloppier and sloppier. A run from the empty right back into the penalty area lead to a whole load of non-tackles; eventually it was cleared, but it was all looking very creaky.

It seemed for all the world that it was going to end in a disappointing 0-0, but then in the last minute more awful defending let the Crewe sub (who had also been the Aldershot sub last week) score a simple goal as his team mates walked unchallenged in to penalty area and laid it on a plate for him. Bugger. He then proceeded to taunt the East Stand. His team mates came over and joined in. The feeble ref did nothing to stop them - that kind of thing has to be looked at surely?

There were a couple of minutes of injury time to go, but Oxford couldn't find a decent reply, and that was it. A professional away performace by Crewe who, although you might say they had been lucky not to be behind early, looked more likely to take the points as the match went on.

The ususl long wait to get out of the car park, and there wasn't even any football to listen to on the way home as there was no late match. Instead it was the supremely egotistical Robbie Savage. Shudder. On went the iPod.

Thoughts for the day...

Very good for 20 minutes, ineffective for 40 minutes, very poor for 30 minutes. Inconsistent from game to game and inconsistent within a game.

It's worrying how quickly we run out of self-confidence.

The substitutions (especially McLaren) didn't really work at all.

Although we went up a place in the table, we are now four points adrift of the club in fifth, with a massive ten points to the automatic promotion places (which are now out of realistic reach I feel, given the way we are playing). If we are to stay in the playoff places we need a couple of wins. 3 points against Hereford on Saturday would be a good start, especially when we have played a game more than those around us. See you all there...