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| When he's good, he's very good... |
Oxford United = Wang
You have to be of a certain age to snigger at that. You can pick up a classic version of that memorable kit for a bargain £749.99 on ebay if you're interested...
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| Cheap at twice the price... |
Last year we were all envious of Oxford's slick passing football but for all the flair and movement, they couldn't triumph over pragmatic Larryball and left Bloomfield with nothing despite dominating the game for pretty much 90 minutes. Perhaps the Plymouth game at the beginning of the year was karma as we did a very good impression of them that day, all pretty stuff but no decisive end product and I ended up thinking 'how the fuck have we lost that?'
We apparently tried quite hard to tempt Karl Robinson last spring but ended up with Critch. The thing about Critch is, it's increasingly hard to tell what he's going to do. Just when we thought he was a stubborn total football purist, he came up with 'twat it to Gaz' as a tactic and just when we thought 'twat it to Gaz' was the new normal he dropped him and went back to 4-3-3 sexyball for a game, then, despite us playing beautifully against Pompey, switched back the very next game. We all thought flying wing backs would be the way of the world but Jimmy Husband and Ollie Turton have kept the rather more attacking Garbutt and Gabriel out of the team until things change today when the latter comes in, despite our Ollie having been subject to high praise by Critch himself in the week.
Gabriel's performances have shown real, real promise so I understand that move. I'm less sold on Ben Woodburn who gets a chance instead of shirtless and hard running Jerry. That seems a slightly odd move to me, but I presume we're going to use Madine as a pivot and expect Woodburn to buzz around and link things up with Sullay, CJ and maybe Grant Ward all trying to get beyond the front man. I'd say there's a bit of pressure on Woodburn to actually do something today if he wants to stay beyond December, given the need for us to get the most out of squad berths, particularly up front. Maybe he's playing because he has some insight into the Oxford defence? Robson's complete exclusion is also a mystery but I'm assuming he's injured.
The last time we came up against a supposedly 'footballing side' was the horribly turgid game against MK Dons which was as bad an advertisement for 'the passing game' as you could imagine. I hate it when people bemoan direct football as anti football on some spurious grounds that passing it short is morally superior than hitting the channels or a big lad. Watching two League 1 sides fanny about at the back with little or no attacking intent is dismal. Watching two sides go at each other 100% has the thrill of a decent boxing match.
So I don't really know how this will go. We could match them, it could be a cracker, lots of movement and triangles and all that. Or it could be dismal and sludgy. Or we could go direct, trying to shake them off their game, getting pace up around Madine, Dougall crunching them, CJ charging off in to the right hand channel at every opportunity. The beauty of our difficult start is that it forced us to face up to playing in different ways and that newfound ability to do so poses more questions for the opposition, starting from how they select their side, as now, they don't automatically know what we're going to do.
What I do know, is it's getting harder to imagine us simply crumbling. We might not yet have the swagger and cutting edge that makes it easy to imagine us winning by 3 or 4 but we've got a solidity about us that suggests whether the opposition bombard the box, try to work space or hit us on the break, we'll be in something like the right shape and playing with commitment enough to absorb it.
Maybe famous last words...
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The game starts very brightly, Pool with a couple of forays down the right, Oxford replying with one down their left. CJ is everything to us so far, with Brett sagely stating 'there's only one race to that winner' as he chases one down. Sullay shows some uncharacteristic strength to hold up the ball, then some more typically characteristic skill to peel away from his man and run diagonally towards the box.
Chissy sets up an anecdote about how good the pitch looks with an inviting 'notice anything about the pitch today?' Brett fluffs his lines by responding with 'er, no.... er.... it looks a bit patchy maybe?' A disgruntled Chissy then tells us all about how brushing it to make the blades stand up have left it resplendent as any turf has ever been, free from any worm based detritus and anything but patchy...
Sullay skins his man then gets in a bit of a panic at being clean through so waits for him to catch up and beats him again, does a 360 turn for good measure and pulls back for CJ who can't connect cleanly. CJ shortly afterwards has a run of his own where he genuinely forgets the ball then falls over as he tries to stop, turn and go back and get it.
The game hasn't lived up to its early promise, it's end to end but neither side are really putting that much pressure on. Oxford look tidy enough and create a chance with a low ball from wide right that's lashed from the edge of the area way over.
What of Ben Woodburn? He's looked ok-ish, but seems prone to going to ground quite easily. He's shown the odd flash in tangerine but not really influenced much and this game is the same. He's certainly not shown much sign of forming a partnership with the Goal Machine so far.
Madine is offside and Brett gives us a glorious metaphor about linesmen and Russian roulette. Woodburn causes two Pool moves to collapse in quick succession, the first a timid square pass in a moment that required some vision or ambition, the second just a poor touch that concedes possession.
Oxford are getting more into it as the half goes on but the next moment is ours as CJ again beats his man and pulls it back, I'm visualising Madine smashing it home but from somewhere an Oxford body appears and cuts out the ball. A corner. Again Madine is in, flicking it on, Marvin is there but it's scrambled out, Dougall swivels and shoots, into the ground, Marvin again nearly get on it but it's headed away before CJ heads it straight up in the air and Marvin flicks it back at goal before finally it bounces into the hands of the Oxford keeper.
Maxwell charges to the edge of the box, takes the ball and stops dead. 'He must have disc brakes...' remarks Chissy 'Aye, ABS kicked in then' agrees Brett. Oxford put a very dangerous ball into the box when their right back who looks just like Steve Foster (the effect helped by the Luton-esque white shirts/dark shorts) in a headband wins a free kick... but Marvin is equal to it.
Hamilton runs at Ruffles (who sounds like the name of a dog from a book about posh public school kids having a jolly holiday), beats him again, puts the low pass he always does across, Sullay does that appearing from deep thing that's worked several times. He seems to have an age to steer it home, but he slips at the crucial moment and ends up lying down on the penalty spot with the ball rolling toward the D when he must have been visualising wheeling away arms aloft, being mobbed by his team mates.
The magnificent CJ then rattles the post from outside the box, a nothingy moment where the ball is bouncing about, everyone is backing into defenders, muscling, pushing and CJ just trots up, smacks it low and hard from outside the right corner of the box, the ball hitting the base of the near post before the keeper know it had left his foot...
The last ten minutes have been the best Pool spell, Madine flicks a corner on, they scramble it away, Sullay brings it back and is fouled. His deep free kick finds Woodburn who turns it back in, again, it's dangerous but it's defended, again we put it back in, with Dougall slotting a first time pass to Husband who gallops away down the left, sees the keeper way of his line, slips it past him but his ball looks like he can't quite decide whether to shoot or pass and it curls past the unattended goal but not quite enough for the onrushing Madine who throws his arms up in frustration as it rolls out of play.
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The last part of the half was very encouraging after a stodgy middle part of the game. I do think it might be an idea to stick Jerry on. Possibly someone who knows about things will explain why Woodburn is there and how I'm reading the game naively, but to me, he's not done much. Madine has looked frustrated and has linked better with CJ than he has the lad from Liverpool, Yates can come deep and do a lot of what Woodburn is doing but he offers more in and around the box and much more in tandem with the big man.
Hamilton has been superb, Sullay has had one of those unfortunate games where he's been quite good except when it really mattered. Dougall has looked just a little bit less disciplined than usual and had he got a booking I wouldn't have been surpised and also a bit concerned about the second half. That he hasn't could be a major blessing. At the back, I think Marvin has been terrific and Maxwell, though not having much to do has continued a thread of a few weeks where he's looked a bit more commanding.
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Marvin nearly makes me eat my half time praise as he gets his legs tangled up and his panicked clearance strikes an Oxford player, nearly rolls to one of their forwards but for a rescuing challenge from the Viking.
Their big centre halves have coped as well with Madine as anyone has all year but after Cumbria's finest lands on one of them he has to go off and I wonder if that will let the big lad get more into the game.
Sullay picks it up deep, runs then threads a terrific pass for the overlapping Gabriel who has a great chance, sprinting clear, bearing down on goal side and losing composure hitting into the side netting at the near post. To be fair, whilst it was a poor shot, Turton would have checked back and played a square ball...
CJ wins another race, goes towards the near post, is forced to the byline then pulls out an outrageous back heel, Sullay goes to hit it but somehow the ball isn't quite heavy enough and it's nipped off Sullay's toes by the sliding challenge from headband lad. Another great Pool move finishes with Gabriel with an evil cross, all across the six yard box but somehow no one finishes. 30 seconds later CJ is winning a far post header, then claiming a hand ball from the Steve Foster impersonator but the ref isn't having it.
Oxford have made a couple of changes. I'm getting fidgity. Maybe I'm just suffering the modern attention defecit curse of the 21st century football fan where something always needs to be happening and everything could always be better, but it feels time to go for it.
CJ does go for it, cutting inside, I'm screaming for him (internally) to give it Gabriel on the overlap, but he just stutters towards the edge of the box, smacks it and via a deflection, it comes off the bar and out for a corner. Maybe it's actually this game that is karma for last year and the Plymouth one was recompense for something else? I hope not as that means they're going to win. Marvin redeems himself for his earlier error by rising well to clear a dangerous cross for a corner. The ball in is met by an Oxford head and scrambled away by the Viking, we're lucky they headed straight at him. An escape!
Gabriel sells a beautiful dummy but his cross is blocked, CJ is so fast he can jog half heartedly and beat the offside trap. He get's a good chipped ball in but Woodburn hasn't quite got the presence to bully his way in front of his man. It's his last action as he's replaced by Keshi. It's a sub but I wanted Jerry... Gabriel does brilliantly, faking three times to get to the byline then putting it to the far post, the ball is nodded about in the box, back and forth and finally away...
Yates, Kemp and Virtue come on for Madine, Sullay and Ward. Virtue and Yates have good early moments, Jerry almost closing down the keeper, Virtue winning it deep and playing an intelligent pass from a right back position that sets us away on a sweeping move that founders on the left side of their box.
Oxford make some attacking subs and their new left winger get past Gabriel twice in the same move and shoots low, Maxwell is equal to it but it's a dicey moment...
The quality drops. An evocative digression from Brett about the 'stench' of Barnsley's toilets passes the time with Chissy slightly creepily thinking out loud 'I wonder what the ladies smell like?' I assume he means the toilets rather than the women of Barnsley as obviously the answer to that would be 'beef dripping and coal dust'
We go forward, Virtue again starting the move with a nice ball but ending it with a terrible one aiming for the far post but missing it by a mile. CJ runs clear but is then pushed wide, Gabriel takes over and runs right across the box but can only touch it to empty space... It's looking like it's not going to happen.
6 minutes of added of added time and Oxford are putting more pressure on than we are, first a corner then a deep free kick met by a diving header which is saved quite brilliantly by Chris Maxwell, one step to predict the flight of the ball and then an incredible leap to claw it onto the post and away. It was a fucking outrageous save, as good as anything you'll see in any league.
We load the box from a free kick of our own, Marvin wins it in the air, sending it across the box and everyone watches it and they belt it away... We belt it back and flick it on again, Virtue dances left, right, steps back, moves forward and finds space but the keeper is alert and plucks it away from him. Virtue does what perhaps others should have done and carries on into the keeper, showing an intent in the box we've simply not had today.
Then CJ is charging through on the left, pushing the ball beyond his man, sprinting after it and then sprawling, seeming to have his legs taken. The question is - inside or outside the box? Seconds pass, I'm waiting for the whistle, but it never comes. It looks nailed on to me and CJ isn't in the habit of going down easily... It's not our day...
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It's been frustrating as we've been the better side. For me, we should have tried two up front for at least some of that game but we still made enough chances to have won it. We've hit the woodwork twice and with Sullay's slip included have created 3 very near moments to their 1.
They're clearly not a bottom half side but a point feels a disappointment on the back of the run we've had and the ambitions that have been growing as a result. We played some really nice stuff in patches but I felt there was something just slightly disjointed about us - I felt that at the outset of the season. It's maybe just the frustration speaking but at the full time whistle I'm no wiser as to why Yates (or for that matter Keshi) didn't start the game and Woodburn did. Such is life though, not everything any manager does will work I suppose...
Defensively we've been excellent again, we've attacked with some verve. It's been (as Brett would have it) "one of those" and whilst it's taken me till last week to think 'we could do it this year' - now I have, this seems like a frustrating result as hope is a cruel thing...
Hull on Tuesday. Massive test.
utmp
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