The 2023/24 L1 Matchday Thread

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.

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 ?

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…

JonnyBiscuits

I think this spell has just highlighted quite how paper-thin our squad is in many areas. Understandable given the neglect and damage wrought upon it over the past couple of years.

@TrevorAylottsHeadband You touch on one of my biggest disappointments with our summer transfer business, and that’s McEachran - difficult to know if he’s just not actually very good or just a bit past it or just doesn’t suit this system. Think it’s probably a little of each.

My Reading friend observed afterwards that we played a few nice little triangles to unlock space down the flanks, which initially he found frightening but by the end he was fairly relaxed about them when they happened because he knew they would be followed by very little goal threat.

Our main areas of weakness last night:

Josh McEachran - one of the main reasons we struggled to get the ball moving out of our defensive line and for spells were just passing it along the back line (note that it’s good that Buckiethistle acknowledged this).
Fin Stevens - not sure he’s a very good defender. Or passer of the ball.
Jordan Thornily - made one or two good blocks and interceptions last night, but overall something of a risk. Never understood the hype first time round.
Mark Harris - works hard and creates space but it’s not enough - particularly when we don’t have goals coming from elsewhere, we badly need a striker to score goals.
Stan Mills - fantastic wrong-foot cross for the goal, but really, really needs to be unleashed on a tired defence as a game gets stretched rather than being started game after game. Unfortunately the same can be said about Goodrham.

Positives:

Brannagan worked really hard and made a difference in the second half.
Josh Murphy was outstanding, and a genuine threat. Was the width of a post away from winning it at the death.

brinyhoof

JonnyBiscuits I watched on iFollow in the end and hard to disagree with any of this. I don’t understand why we were set up so defensively against such a piss poor side as Reading. Not once in the second half did it feel like we were doing anything other than secure a point, particularly with McEachran on the pitch.

It felt at times like our only tactic was to win free kicks - is this D-Buck recognising we are more likely to score from a set piece? If so, thats a damning indictment on our attacking players. Except Murphy who looked threatening for most of the match.

Lots of head-scratchers then and hoping Buckaroo is backed in January. And EARLY January please.

JonnyBiscuits

RE: the atmosphere. Sorry everyone, but it’s not a derby. It hasn’t been for a quarter of a century. You can’t just magic up animosity, particularly in a 40% empty stadium.

oxblogger

JonnyBiscuits Agree, I’d go further and say Wycombe is. By the same token that we have no recent shared history with Reading, we have loads with Wycombe. Plus, it’s much more fun to lean into the scratchiness of the whole relationship than to pretend they’re just another club.

JonnyBiscuits

And their protest wasn’t a protest, it was a goal celebration. I actually think they should get in trouble for that. Especially as two of their supporters attempted to chuck tennis balls at Cam when he was taking a corner. The fact that they missed isn’t a good reason for them to avoid sanction.

oxblogger

JonnyBiscuits The bloke next to me said they normally protest in the 16th minute, just as that came around they got a corner. I might have been me, but there was a weird shift in mood, almost like they weren’t sure whether to do the protest or hold back to allow the corner to be taken. Like you say, it was just part of their celebrations because they had a few tennis balls knocking about.

Joe_Citrone

This may sound harsh, but I can’t help getting the feeling that Fin Stevens is the latest off the conveyor belt of full-backs we’ve had - Steve Seddon, Brandon Fleming, Djavan Anderson etc - who are neither very good at defending nor particularly outstanding going forward.

No one else will say this, but I genuinely think we miss Sam Long. I feel a lot calmer and more comfortable with him in defence.

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