The 2023/24 L1 Matchday Thread

Bspittles

brinyhoof He got some decent crosses in, and had the pace and control to create those opportunities for himself.

brinyhoof

Bspittles going to be a huge asset if he stays fit. Like most of our wingers 😐

oxblogger

Match wrap | Peterborough United 3 Oxford United 0

’Liam Manning’s legacy is cast having navigated the relative calm of the opening months of the season. Des Buckingham now has to navigate stormier seas hoping we’re robust enough to withstand them.'

https://oxblogger.co.uk/2023/12/10/match-wrap-peterborough-united-3-oxford-united-0/

Lars

oxblogger

”I’d argue that that there was a degree of luck involved in getting to that position – we scored nine goals in four games between Stevenage and Blackpool, eight of which were scored by defenders.”

These games gave me the feeling that we could be without goalscoring forwards. Last season Matty Taylor had a hard time. Has it something to do with how we play ?

LeftSider

My match report:

Slick Peterborough United were light years ahead of ponderous Oxford United and were better in every conceivable way.

I stupidly allowed myself to think that this was the year; I think not. It really is the hope that kills you.

Maybe next year?

JonnyBiscuits

LeftSider There’s still a long way to go.

Either way though, I reckon next season is more likely and may well be preferable. Manning’s supposed trajectory was a three window squad rebuild. The disruption of changing managers might extend that - the squad is still very thin in certain places.

JonnyBiscuits

As a broader point, we’re still in the turbulence of a manager change, and as @Gingermoods was saying to me the other day, we have key positions yet to be filled. Presumably the analyst position was crucial to Manning’s on-the-field successes (otherwise he wouldn’t have immediately taken him to Bristol), so it wouldn’t be fair to expect Bucko to be immediately maintaining that level of success without anybody in that role.

I was always troubled by the continuity candidate thing, which @oxblogger has alluded to much more eloquently in this week’s blog because Desbo needs to be Desbo, not Manning mk2 (not least bcs he currently isn’t getting all the assistance Manning was getting). But also because of the expectation levels it generated by inadvertently implying that it would be easy for Buckeridoo to continue where Manning left off and anything less than that might be seen as failure.

Continuity candidate schmontinuity schmandidate.

JonnyBiscuits

Also, and finally, on a much more basic level, that away trip to P-bo was always gonna be an absolute rotter.

Bspittles

With no evidence to back me up, I think we’re scoring more from (or as a result of) set pieces. So sharing the goals around would be a natural consequence.

JonnyBiscuits

Kit looks great though.

TrevorAylottsHeadband

It’s also worth noting that we have been ‘running hot’ through the first part of the season, significantly outperforming our xG, and that was always going to catch up with us. It’s frustrating though, because the good start has shifted the expectations dial and people are now starting to moan about underperformance when a) we’ve only had one transfer window and b) we’re still light years ahead of where we were last year.

I am slightly concerned for tomorrow night. Reading are obviously a basket-case at the moment, but they also seem to be able to pull out decent results from time to time and, with our luck, that could well be against us. I think we need a good result to maintain morale within our own camp, regardless of the local bragging rights which come with it.

JonnyBiscuits

TrevorAylottsHeadband that was always going to catch up with us.

I disagree with that. We were seventh in the xG table last season. It’s absolutely nowhere near a reliable enough stat to be able to use it to make predictions on success in short or long term. At this point last season KR predicted that Plymouth would sink like a stone because they were massively outperforming their xG.

brinyhoof

JonnyBiscuits isn’t it one stat of many though? ‘Big chances created’ being another? I tend to agree though, JB. As my old man would have said, if football were that predictable I’d win the pools every week!

The biggest stat affecting us is ‘the number of key players injured’ I would suggest.

TrevorAylottsHeadband

JonnyBiscuits I get where you’re coming from. The thing with xG is that it is effectively an average, so there will always be outliers. Where Plymouth managed to exceed (and over the course of last season they were +0.2, the same as we are now) was being able to score goals from lots of positions - they had 7 players who scored 5 or more in the league. The other factor which can buck the xG is the efficiency of the strikers, so the better they are, the more they will outperform the xG average. We have Harris…

I agree with @brinyhoof and also think that injuries have caused us problems, particularly from a lack of being able to pick a steady XI from game to game.

JonnyBiscuits

Agreed. As an example, I think Greg Leigh in particular is a big miss for us. Having Bodin and Brown on the left, while they’re both splendid footballers, essentially invites pressure on bcs they’re never really forcing the full-back and winger backwards. I think I understand the reticence of starting Murphy, he would at least make the opposition’s right hand side hesitate about overcommitting.

brinyhoof

JonnyBiscuits not sure I understand the reticence of starting Murphy! I think Buckles has already said he will be in the XI tomorrow?

JonnyBiscuits

brinyhoof

Yeah, I think it’s clear he’ll be starting tomorrow.

I think the reticence… and I’m very much reading between the lines here and probably getting it wrong… is partly down to his outlook and attitude. For whatever reason, it seems to have taken him quite a while to get his head straight - he’s getting there now by the look of things, but you don’t want to lob him straight in and undo all the hard work. Again, that’s very much conjecture, but it’s an observation based on how all of KR, Manning, Short and Buckfast have talked about him, and how he’s been used/not used.

Also, just on a footballing level, I think against Pbo in particular it was a (mistaken, imo) attempt at caution - thinking the gung-ho winger might expose us at the back against the best attacking side in the division… when actually, for the reasons I outlined above, maybe having the gung-ho winger might have eased the pressure at the back.

JonnyBiscuits

The squib was overly moistened.

JonnyBiscuits

Wycombe is definitely more of a derby than that.

TrevorAylottsHeadband

Frustrating as hell last night. We were head and shoulders above Reading but simply could not create decent chances, and made too many sloppy mistakes. McEachren is the new David Smith, except he always passes the ball backwards rather than sideways, and should have got the shepherd’s crook much earlier than he did. Mills looked jaded and could do with some time out of the starting line up. Murphy was superb, particularly in the last 20 mins or so when we realised what a threat he was down the left, and really deserved a goal.

Also worth noting that the Reading ‘protest’ was utterly pathetic. They threw a few tennis balls and a smoke flare onto the itch immediately after their goal, delaying the restart by about 30 seconds. Almost zero disruption, making it a totally pointless gesture.

Oh, and I have to say that I thought our fans were shit last night. When we were pretty rampant in the last 15 mins, there was very little vocal support. I tried to gat a “Come on Oxford” chant going and was met with total silence. I know people will say that the performance wasn’t inspiring, but we were seriously threatening at the end, in a local derby, and some support would have been nice…

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