A sense of Deja Vu (vs Wycombe L2)

Hi all -

After a couple of matches with no blog report (I found the Bury match a bit depressing and didn't go to Torquay), I thought I'd fire up the trusty typewriter and pen a few words about todays home match against Wycombe. Why? Well I usually try to write about the away matches I go to, on the basis that far fewer people will have seen it first hand. Home matches don't seem so bloggable as most people have seen the game anyway. But for me, alarm bells were ringing after the Bury match and I thought today would actually be very interesting in the light of that.

As I set off down to Oxford, the British weather was up to it's normal tricks when there is a test match on - raining cats, dogs and quite possibly horses and elephants as well., but it cleared up as I got to the stadium and despite some very ominous looking clouds the weather held off over the afternoon. The other ominous clouds that had been gathering were to do with our home form and the team selection. Home form? Now before you all click the 'back' button in disgust, I know that we've only played one home league game and we won it. What's to worry about? A one hundred percent record - couldn't be better. But as we all know, the old cliche is that the league is a marathon not a sprint. So if a 50 year old bloke with a limp wearing carpet slippers set off running a marathon at a sprint and was leading after the first fifty yards, I think you could quite justfiably doubt his ability to keep that up for the next 26 miles!

We had beaten Bury, but to my mind it was very unconvincing. I kept having flashbacks to last season when the away form was actualy very good but at home, the word 'average' could have been coined for us - if the coin maker was feeling kind. So on to the second home match of the season, the not-really-a derby-well-I suppose-it-is-geographically game against Wycombe Wanderers, who had so far managed not to set the league alight.

Rigg had pulled a hamstring at Torquay so he was out, and then on Radio Oxford before the game they said that Smalley also had a hamstring twinge so he was out too. Oh and CW had already said that Kitson would be on the bench as he was not yet recovered from his rib/shoulder injury completely.

OK that shouldn't be too much of a problem, we have another left winger in Callum O'Dowda. Swap him in for Rigg - he'd looked good in preseason when I saw him. Beano up front, and find someone to play with or just off him. Maybe Hall, maybe Davies. That in itself is a bit of an indictment of the depth of the squad when two strikers are injured (not uncommon for two to be injured or suspended) and the other one in the squad (Tyrone Marsh) isn't generally considered to be an immediate replacement.

Then the radio announced the team. Normal back four and goalie, then Davies Whing Rose and Hall midfield and Beano up front with Alfie supposedly playing 'just off him'. What?!! Let's pick the bones out of that. Alfie plays best on the right wing, so we put a central midfielder there. And while we are at it we put another central midfielder on the left wing. And the Beano/Alfie partnership up front has never really worked. Alfie floats back to where he is happy, leaving Beano isolated then wanders back infield when he remembers what he is supposed to be doing. We all know how good Beano is as a lone striker... it's just not his game.

Anyway, having got to my seat in what was a fairly busy stadium, and having realised that the ref was Andy D'Urso and one of the linemen was Danny de Vito, we started off by kicking towards the fence end as we prefer. To be fair, the first quarter of an hour was fairly tight, with us perhaps having the territorial advantage. But there were warning signs. As the half wore on, the signs got more obvious. For some reason, a windy day in Grenoble Road has made us think that hoofing the ball in the air was a good idea. 'Keep it on the floor' (and variations thereof) was a common sound in the East stand. As was 'Challenge for it' - mainly aimed at an empty area of the pitch (empty of men in yellow anyway) that is known as the midfield. Danny Rose was doing sterling work, but Whing was as usual the more defensive of the central pair, sitting just in front of the defence. The other central midfielders (who were sort of supposed to be pretend wingers) weren't, if we are being honest, doing very much of anything. Running up the wing and crossing the ball was just not happening, but they were sitting a bit wider then they needed to if the were going to be effective at getting hold of the ball in the middle.

Wycombe were coming more and more into it, with corners coming frequently, and we weren't looking dangerous, with the only decent shot I can remember in this period being a turn-and-shot from Beano - he almost managed to make something out of nothing. Then the ex-Oxford Dean Morgan (talented but very tempramental) had a header directed to him inside our box and headed it past Clarke, with our defenders looking to Danny de Vito to give an offside. He didn't and we were one down with halftime coming up. It's harsh to say that the goal had been coming (Wycombe weren't exactly peppering the goal with on-target attempts) but in truth they had got hold of the midfield and were running the show. It was almost two as a Wycombe lofted shot found Clarke (whose kicking throughout the game was dismal!) backpeddalling towards his line. It would have gone in under the crossbar so he had to gather it, then found his momentum was still carrying him towards the net, so he threw the ball away and danger was averted. Half time came.

The half time entertainment was Chicken George (probably not allowed to call him that really, but think of it as 'historical') drawing the 50/50 raffle and a bloke asking his girlfriend to marry him. I must admit I think any marriage is off to a rocky start when the groom can't think of a more romantic and intimate setting for a proposal than a football stadium where half the people aren't interested and the other half are chanting 'You don't know what you're doing'! Still, each to his own. I'm starting to regret the passsing of the crossbar challenge if that's what it's come to. Not the Kick the Ball into the Buildbase Box though, that was really pants.

So the second half dawned with Davies going off for Kitson. Not that Davies had played particularly badly, but he was a round peg in a winger shaped hole. Kitson partnered Beano and Potter went to the right wing - where he should have been to start with.

This immediately paid dividends: as Alfie raced past the Chairboys left back, the hapless Wycombe player threw out an arm and caught him in the face. After Torquay and now that, his nose must look like he's done a couple of rounds with Mike Tyson. Was it a sending off? I'm not convinced that it was deliberate really - but the consistently poor Mr D'Urso thought it was, so off he went. The resulting free kick was taken by the hyperactive Duracell Bunny otherwise known as Danny Rose. He put a lovely free kick into the area (something we had avoided doing when given the chance a couple of times in the first half), Oxford players missed it, Wycombe players watched it go past and it bounced rather comically into the net. What was their goalkeeper doing?

Back on par, the formation better and the opposition down to ten men. And 35 minutes to go. Great. So what happens? Straight away, CW makes a substitution. Riiight. We spend the whole of the first half playing people out of position and he does nothing. Then he largely corrects the error for about ten minutes and it works beautifully. So he changes it again. What? He takes Hall off (peg, winger, hole again) and moves Potter to the left - and brings on Ryan Williams on the right. Sigh. Leave Potter on the right, take Hall off, put a left winger on the left. It's not hard.

Kitson had a decent headed chance that should have at least made the goalie work and didn't, but in general we were now suddenly misfiring. Williams is pretty raw, and didn't have the experience to exploit the space, Potter hardly saw the ball again for the rest of the match. The ball, which we had actually started the half by passing on the ground, suddenly went airbourne again. Kitson won his fair share - but come on, we are better than hoof and hope. While we are on the subject, please could Oxford players look where they are passing the ball before they try to do so - I promise it makes it more likely to go to a teammate. Thanks.

Then Morgan dashed into our penalty area, Hunt dangled a leg, Morgan went over it and D'Urso blew for a soft (but probably corrrect) penalty - which Morgan scored. 2-1 down against ten men. Rubbish. Still there was still the best part of half an hour to go, surely we would dominate against the ten men as the game went on by passing it on the floor to our speedy wingers? Nope. Oh, then maybe we'd get hold of the midfield and play some incisinve balls through the triring defence for Beano to run on to? Nope, not that either.

Mullins had a decent shot that the keeper saved (but it looked destined for the post or the side netting anyway from where I was sitting), and Kitson showed a touch of class with a shot destined for the goal that the Wycombe keeper saved excellently. But time was ticking on, and a neutral observer would hardly say that Wycombe were under the cosh. What they obviously were under was orders to waste time. A sniper in the stands kept shoting their players, only for their physio to keep coming on and making sure they weren't actually hors de combat and making them better with a combination of neck massage and magic water.

There wasn't much that Mr D'Urso got right this afternnon in my opinion, but one thing he did do correctly was to add seven minutes injury time to make up for all this Holby City quality acting. In the fifth of those minutes, Kitson flicked the ball on, Constable somehow knocked a Wycombe defender over without D'Urso noticing and Mullins hammered the ball into the net to earn an unlikely draw. There was even the hope than we could snatch a ridiculous win, but time beat us even if Wycombe couldn't.

The final whistle blew and the Oxford team got a rather undeserved ovation. If injury time had been a couple of minutes shorter they would have been jeered off the pitch.

And back into the car and home.

Our home form is absolutely vital to any sustained success. At the moment we are a team good at counter attacking, bad at taking the initiative. Some of the passing is dire and is made too slowly - there were numerous occasions in the second half when Wright in particular had the option to pass the ball quickly to a wide player, but dawdled so long the pass was either never made or the recieving player was closed down. Is there a case for not playing Andy Whing? He is a great 'stopper' in front of the defence but that leaves Danny Rose isolated as the central midfielder higher up the pitch - we were getting overrun there today - did we win a single second ball? Maybe Whing plays away (that's not some sort of accusation!!!) and Davies at home? We've had success this season playing with wingers - keep doing it CW. And when you've just done something clever that is working - don't fiddle with it!

I know some readers will find this report unduly harsh - how can I moan about 10 points from 12, and we are top of the league for God's sake. And of course teams always 'raise their game' when they come to our place. Yeah right. I'd say Portsmouth were the big fish in L2, not us. But I'm only saying this because I care. It's not me it's you etc.  And as for that marathon runner, maybe it would be a kindness to pull him aside and suggest that he used better tactics and used his resources wisely by wearing footgear designed for the job. I think I've just broken that metaphor.

Well let's see what next Saturday's home match to Rochdale brings, hopefully experience is a great teacher - four points from the two home matches wouldn't be a disaster. Any less and I'll be revising my 'possible auto promotion' hopes to 'probable playoffs'.

See you all next time and

= COME ON YOU YELLOWS =

PS Big congratulations to Beano and partner on the birth of their daughter!