It was a Dark and Stormy Night (vs Burton L2)

Hello everyone,

It doesn't seem that long ago that I was down in the dumps after our terrible performance at Burton. Since then we've had a decent run in the league, a bit of a wimp-out in a couple of cups and Saturday's very poor showing at Fleetwood.

Not that I ventured up to the land of the Cod Army. Playing the Captain Pugwash music after a goal? Really? Not that there's anything wrong with Captain Pugwash. In fact the first dog my family had (when I was five) was a Boxer called - you've guessed it - Captain Pugwash. Since he was nominally my birthday present I was the one who got to name him. Ah - happy times.

Still, back to the present. Burton at home on a Tuesday night. As I drove to the stadium, it felt as if the wheels were loose on the jalopy, but it was just the blustery and strong wind moving the car about. That didn't bode well - those of us who go regularly to Grenoble Road know just how much effect the wind has on matches played there. In fact, a slight breeze outside the stadium seems to multiply into a gale inside - so what it would be like tonight, God only knew. Add in a seasoning of cold drizzle and it wasn't going to be pleasant or easy for the players.

First thing was to go and get a ticket for next Saturday's Ultimate Away Support match at Sarfend. It's always a decent ground to go to, with a low roof over the away end. Although we usually seem to play well and lose as far as my admittedly unreliable memory is concerned...

Ticket bought, prawn sandwich eaten (ohh - posh! But bought from a garage on the way down. ohh - pleb!!), in I went.

I've mentioned the overhead conditions, what about those underfoot? My heart sank as I looked at the pitch. A patchwork of mud, grass and sand with the worst bit being (as always) the area around the halfway line on the South side of the pitch. I can't imagine a much worse combination than a bobbly soggy pitch and a strong swirling wind. It seemed as if we might not be seeing much of the 'beautiful game' tonight!

Team news was back to 4-4-2, with the big surprise (although perhaps not to those who had seen 'Flapper' Brown in the last couple of matches) being that Max Crocombe was making his debut in goal. Otherwise, O'Brien replaced Capaldi at left back, Chapman started in place of Heslop and Craddock and Constable started up top. Well, as anyone who reads this blog regularly will know, I'm not a big fan of our central midfield personnel/partnerships in general. I haven't seen Montrose play yet as he has joined the sick and injured (including Whing) after one match, and Cox has now gone back so we are now left with the choice of Heslop, Leven and Chapman for the two available slots. I simply don't think there is a good combination there. Chapman and Leven is probably the best of a bad bunch. I wish the midfield had been sorted out properly in the summer!

As kick off approached, the crowd was sparse. Very sparse. I've sneaked a look at the match report and apparently the Brewers brought 65 supporters. I don't know where they were - I counted 32 in the away area of the stand. Not that Oxford had anything to crow about. The whole crowd didn't top 5,000. Ouch. Maybe because the match was just before the first pay packet after the Christmas/New Year period.

It has to be said that the missing hundreds probably didn't miss much for long periods of the match. We started (as seemingly always) slowly. And deep. Perhaps because we had a rookie keeper (who got a great reception from those who had bothered to turn up), perhaps because both teams were having trouble making any meaningful headway. The pitch discouraged passing on the floor, the wind played merry hell with anything in the air.

Neither team looked like scoring really. Batt put one past the Burton post, Burton put one over the bar from a free kick. Duberry started feeling his right hamstring on about 20 minutes and went straight off to be replaced by Raynes. The best move of the half came after about half an hour. All match we had been trying to move the ball sideways and backwards before going forwards again, looking for an opening. In truth it was all too slow, with little threat and with the moved breaking down due to the inevitable error during the over-passing. However, this time it very nearly worked. Pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, Chapman through ball, Batt shot from 10 yards or so. We all tensed, ready to leap to our feet, but the Burton keeper got a great hand to the ball and palmed it wide. Good save! The move and the save got a round of applause from the east stand. From the resulting corner, Raynes headed a good chance over the bar. Craddock combined well with Rigg, but his shot was deflected wide.

So the attack at least was improving. The defence? Well, not really. They hadn't been asked to do much, but they had a bad case of ditheritis. Dithering on the ball, dithering when they should be clearing it. Batt decided that backheeling the ball into his own penalty area straight to a Burton player was an excellent move. It wasn't. Don't ever do that again. Not that Burton were exerting much pressure.

Half time. From both teams being very ineffective to start with, we had improved a bit. Burton hadn't really - but there wasn't much between the teams.

The second half started with an unwelcome surprise. Leven had been replaced by Capaldi. So our dynamic midfield duo was Capaldi and Chapman. Oops. It shows just how thin the squad is (and just how much faith CW has in Heslop - a specialist central midfield player). However, five minutes into the second half the Burton keeper let a ball go over his goal line thinking it was a goal kick. It wasn't, it had got a hefty deflection from a defender. Capaldi took the resulting corner on the Burton left, and the (slightly chunky looking) Beano headed it home somehow when surrounded by three Burton defenders. Excellent stuff. Burton hadn't looked like scoring, and we had been the better team. Let's go and get another!

But as often happens with Oxford, kicking a team when they are down doesn't seem to be our style. We gradually dropped back, not helped by the fact that the Chapman/Capaldi midfield had gone completely AWOL, and that Potter (usually a reliable 'out' when are under pressure) was having a shocker. Strangely enough, although they hadn't been very threatening it wasn't a huge surprise when Burton equalised after about 25 minutes of the half. A long ball from the right to the far post found three Burton players being marked by Batt. On his own. It was someone's job to be there as well - I'd hazard a guess at Raynes. Anyway the result was a shot that Crocombe had no chance with. The ground went deadly quiet. Normally when the opposition scores their supporters make a din, but there weren't really enough Burton fans to make any noise.

That did at least spur the men in yellow on to some sort of forward effort. Although in truth it was still going sideways and backwards an awful lot. Craddock put one over the bar and was replace by the hard-working Smalley, who didn't look like scoring. Not that anyone else did. Since we had let in the equaliser we hadn't managed to have a shot on target. In fact we had two shots on target all match, which you can add to the one we managed at Fleetwood. Simply not good enough.

The ref (who had an inconsistent game in difficult conditions - I am being kind) blew to end the match to general apathy.

I was amazed to get back in the car and find both RadOx presenters saying they thought we had played well. We did OK for about half the first half in my opinion. The rest was very poor. Amazingly enough the result lifted Burton into the automatic promotion spots. But I guess in their two latest matches Burton had won their home match and drawn their away match which is what you have to do.

Another thing I heard on the radio rather worried me. CW talking about having to 'find a way to win' at home on that pudding of a pitch. For long periods of the match we were hoofing the ball forward in the air. If that's how we are going to try to do it, then we are going nowhere fast. Actually, if I am honest I think we aren't going anywhere anyway. Too inconsistent, not fit enough, not threatening enough, too small a squad, too many injuries too often.

So the only thing to do is to enjoy the ride. Difficult to do sometimes in what has been a largely uninspiring season, but the Ultimate Away Support day at Southend should be good fun.

Be there or be square!

On the Gallop (Cheltenham L2)

First of all, Happy Hew Year everyone!

I hadn't travelled to Exeter or Wimbledon.  Exeter is a bloody long way (I am an extra hour and a half the wrong side of Oxford) and I left it too late to get a Wimbledon ticket. I'm not the most organised of blokes.

Mrs Zero however is very organised indeed. In fact she cheerfully announced to me that she had organised a surprise outing on New Year's Day. Bugger. I put on a cheerful face and asked what, where and when? The answers were: horse pantomime, outside Milton Keynes, 6.30. Never mind the what, the where and when made it possible for me to get to the New Year's match against Cheltenham and get back to what sounded a very bizzare entertainment indeed.

Which was a good job. As I may have mentioned before, I am a very poor listener as far as Yellows matches on the radio (or YellowPlayer) are concerned. I hate not being able to see what is going on, and with YP often lagging significantly, I keep refreshing the forum as news of goals often comes through there first. Add to that the spooky fact that as soon as I wander off to go to the loo or get a drink, something exciting happens and the result is that listening to matches does me no good at all. I end up stressed, wanting to wee and dehydrated. So it was a relief (in many ways) to be able to attend a game.

I got down to the stadium good and early. Firstly I wanted to get near the exit of the East Stand car park to make a quick getaway after the match (timings were going to be tight) and I also needed to buy a ticket for the Cup match on Saturday. As always, I tuned the car radio to RadOx at 2 to get the team news. Raynes out ill, so the nominally fit (but surely not match fit) Duberry was in the starting line up. Beano was in the side despite his sending off at Wimbledon, pending the appeal. I wasn't there myself of course, but those whose judgement I trust who saw the incident thought it was very harsh indeed. Personally I doubt that the FA will overturn it without a better view than I have seen so far - time will tell I guess. But despite that, it was good to see a reasonably settled side - Cox was playing, so we would be more resilient defensively.

Once I got inside, there were two things I immediately noticed. Firstly, there weren't as many in the stands as might have been hoped for. Secondly, someone had stolen our pitch and replaced it with a muddy field. It looked awful. And that was from half way up in the stands. What on earth it looked (and played) like at closer quarters was something I could only imagine. Whilst you can't blame our favourite ex-owner from maximising his investment in the stadium, maybe he could spend a tiny proportion of the large amount of his new revenue on getting the pitch in shape - given that we've got thirty blokes with cauliflower ears and an inflated view of their own sportsmanship ('sure I tried to gouge his eyes out, but we had a pint together afterwards so that's OK') running up and falling down on it. In front of the South stand was the worst affected area, with the ball sticking in it during the game, and huge divots redirecting the ball at random.

So the match kicked off, with us both kicking off and kicking towards the fence end to start with. Excellent. To be fair, both teams were trying to pass the ball about. And to be equally fair, both were losing possession all the time. Some of it was down to the pitch, some of it not. Alfie had a shot after ten minutes or so, Cheltenham didn't look very threatening. What turned out to be the game's deciding incident came after about a quarter of an hour.

The always threatening Rigg managed to struggle through the bog at the side of the pitch and played a through ball to Tom Craddock, who went directly at the goal, only to go flying after a challenge from a Robin's defender. From the other end of the pitch it's always difficult to tell of course, but it looked straightforward enough and the ref duly awarded a penalty. Foul + goal scoring opportunity = red card. Or not. A yellow maybe? Nope. Very odd. Anyway, Peter Leven (now looking like he's much more in shape than a couple of weeks ago) put the penalty close to the keeper, just to his right. Not a brilliant penalty, but good enough to beat the goalie and we were one up. Good stuff.

The rest of the first half was fairly forgettable in truth. Rigg put a header across the face of the goal, Duberry hit one into the car park, the lively Cheltenham winger McGlashan poked in a shot that Clarke saved easily enough (and it looked like it may have been going wide anyway). Cheltenham increasingly held the ball, and still couldn't do anything with it. The Oxford back four had an excellent game, and with Cox controlling the space in front of them, Cheltenham showed little imagination in trying to get through. Wright deserves a special mention here - it was an excellent display from the captain, and even his occasional weak point (his distribution) was very much improved.  Half time came, and in the stands we reflected on the match so far. Neither side had impressed very much really. The Oxford defence looked secure, the Cheltenham midfield solid but uninspired. Both attacks looked a little toothless, which was a bit odd on the Oxford side, having scored eight goals in the previous three games. Being in the lead, puts a gloss on a performance of course, so the feeling was generally positive. In the second half, we would be playing our preferred way and Cheltenham would have to come out and attack.

After the half time entertainment (a young lad won a Buildbase voucher for chipping the ball into the box - bet he can't wait to get down there to spend it!!), the teams re-emerged and Cheltenham tried to exert some pressure. Which was made easier as they could now see what they were doing, the floodlights having been turned on only at half time, Unfortunately for the visitors, their effort was all sound and fury signifying nothing. Clarke had very few saves to make, none of which really troubled him, most of them straight at him.

The newly signed Josh Parker replaced the just-booked Tom Craddock with half an hour to go. I thought he held the ball up reasonably well when it was knocked up to him, but there were at least a couple of occasions when he should have passed the ball but held on to it too long. Still, he's new to the team, and his pace could be useful. If Beano is suspended, maybe we could play Potter and Craddock up front and put Parker on the right? Parker did fashion one chance for himself with some good movement, but blazed the ball over the bar shortly after Alfie put on past the Cheltenham right hand post. Pity.

Not much was happening down the other end meanwhile. There were few if any on-target attempts on goal. Normally we all sit biting our nails if we are one ahead as the final whistle looms, but the back four (or 5) looked totally secure.

The ref (who wasn't the worst we've ever had, but had made some odd decisions both ways during the match) blew the whistle to end the match. In the interests of journalistic truth and to make sure I don't get called by the Levenson Enquiry, I have to disclose that I didn't actually see that. I'd left as the 90 minutes was up, in order to get out of the car park in a timely fashion. Couldn't miss the horse pantomime could I?

So, a fairly uninspiring game of football really from both sides. The pitch may have had something to do with it I suppose. Sometimes a cliche becomes a cliche because it is true, and 'winning ugly' fitted this match if anything ever did. In truth a draw might have been a fair result - we certainly didn't deserve to be beaten by a disappointing Cheltenham, who surely must have been significantly better for large stretches of the season than they showed in this match.

As for the men in yellow, have they turned the corner? Well they've put any realistic chance of relegation out of people's minds now, which is a good start - another 21 games to get 15 points to reach the magical 50 point safety point. Are the playoffs in reach? Not yet they aren't. We have to be at least five points better than six of the teams above us over the rest of the season. Certainly not impossible, certainly not easy. And the manager? Well although I am still not convinced by the performances I have seen recently, it is hard to argue with four wins on the bounce with a ten match unbeaten run. It's obvious that CW now has until (at least?) the end of the season in charge and he has gone some way to redeem the dismal form of earlier in the season. For everyone's sake - his, the players, the owner's and ours - long may it continue.

Next we have the two cup matches. A little break from the tension of the league, two difficult matches - which will be more difficult if we lose Constable for them as I suspect we will.

And, just to puncture the tension that's been building up, I did get to the horse pantomime in time. A Christmas show put on by the stunt horse riders who appear in a shedload of TV and film productions. I could take or leave the panto bits (preferably leave), but the horses were beautiful and well-trained and the riders athletic, skilled and brave. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would.

Hi Ho Silver - see you all next time.