Home Match Day Thread 1/12/2020 L1 OUFC v Ipswich Town

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We are a shadow of the team we were at the start of the year, it’s a very hard watch at present and the players we have are just not good enough to realise the potential we had at this club we love.
We as OUFC supporters know what our most effective formation is.
a) A committed ”for the cause” goalkeeper
b) Two solid ”no frills“ centre backs
c) A right back and a left back that (a) can defend but more importantly (b) can get forward and overlap the our midfielders to create a threat.
d) A box to box midfielder with an eye for goal
e) An unsung hero in midfield breaking up the play from opponents
f) A striker that is capable of 20+ goals a season
g) The remainder of the team work to compliment the key players which in turn improve them to go on to bigger and better careers.
THIS FORMATION, DNA, TYPE OF PLAYER, WHATEVER YOU CALL IT HAS BEEN THE CATALYST EVERY TIME WE HAVE BEEN SUCCESSFUL.....
.
Everyone reading this will have opinions of putting ex-players into my above categories from yesterdays past, and every name banded around will be better than we currently have.
I don’t think we have the players in the club at present that fit into the “OXFORD UNITED” DNA......

So I've added some letters to your post for ease of response......

I'd generally agree with your list.
But then I'd argue that we already have e) - Alex Gorrin is as good a defensive midfielder as we've had in a long time. Maybe since Martin Gray? (Danny Bulman was great.....but that was at a level two leagues lower; MApp got us promoted without a dedicated midfield destroyer)

We already have d) - he's just recovering from a freak eye condition. Hopefully will be back before too long

We already have f) - I hope everyone would agree; he's not in a great run of form at the moment, but Matty is capable of a 20 goal season with service

We have the potential for b) - they're still growing into their roles, but I think Moore & Atkinson have a ton of promise, and they've been getting better for the most part week-by-week.


So potentially all that's missing from your list is a reliable keeper, and a pair of fullbacks that can offer more going forwards?
 
Great praise on a young defence that holds out against a very poor Ipswich team; was the defence good or were their forwards (and the rest of the team) particularly poor, missing first-teamers and on a bad run ? Fortunately Karl is looking to the transfer market next month to ease our problems. Trouble is he will start his ramblings about earmarked players much too soon giving these players time to work out their excuses for not joining us.!! I would love the club to let the fans know who we 'were' chasing; I understand (reluctantly) we won't be told beforehand but could be told once we fail to sign the numerous players, and why. Additionally it would show the fans what type of player , and what type of team Karl is searching for, accepting he is under certain restrictions. Knowing the names and quality of players we have genuinely tried to sign but failed is preferable to the doubt raised by being fed with mystery men of no name who seem to falter at the final hurdle of signing contracts !!
So to be clear when we lose the defence is poor, when we don't concede the opposition are poor.

I can see the scenario now after your request/hope/wish "here is the list of players we enquired about" cue fanbase "what we doing going after x y z they were never going to join and it's all spin and bullshi* "

if you're so desperate to know "links" you don't need the club spoon feeding you and i can't believe you actually think they could, there are 1 or 2 on here that give the odd snippet that often proves to be spot on so just keep an eye out for them.

There was a very telling piece on ifollow last evening, the lad from QPR was 4th or 5th on the wish list so that should give you an idea of how difficult it can be and that btw can be for numerous reasons.
 
To be fair I think Eastwood would have kept a clean sheet tonight, that has to be one of the most impotent opponents we’ve faced since our last clean sheet. I actually thought Stevens looked a bit shaky, nearly fumbled one easy cross, a couple of moments of indecision venturing out of his area and there were one or two crosses, head height, that came straight across the line of the six yard box with Stevens nowhere. He had good moments too but I wouldn’t say we’ve just seen our new long term goalkeeper out there tonight.

I think he is an option as back up, but with a performance as you outlined above, against clearly one of the worst teams we've played all season, you have to look ahead to see how he will fare against a top side like Hull. It should have been addressed in the summer, as kr has shown little faith in stevens up to this point with loans coming in previously.
For the longer term it needs to be addressed. With Eastwood in such poor form, and Shakin' Stevens, a temporary measure, we need a solid dependable keeper, as we have always seem to have had through the years to captain the defence.
 
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Chris Williams is employed by the club, and writes report (or programme notes) for the club. So these will generally be more upbeat than comments on here (even mine!). But let's not forget that Chris is first and foremost an Oxford fan and works incredibly hard behind the scenes to give us the interaction we have. Without him we almost certainly would have half of the media content or the fan engagement we had prior to covid. If you want a hard hitting critical review of our performance then the club website probably isn't the place to go!!
It's must be very hard for Chris and his team to strike the balance between fan and employee, I certainly wouldn't fancy that task. He's an exceptionally nice bloke and must work incredibly hard, covering the work, I suspect, of multiple people.

I have little doubt that the budget he has to work to doesn't stretch too far which, if that is true, means he would be very limited in what he can produce. But, the content is just a repeat of itself, mainly telling Karl and then hearing Karl say the word 'care' over and over again; it's grating and not worth the subscription.
 
I actually happen to think the interaction could be much much better. Virtual tours of the training ground and or stadium, a this week in Oxford series which maybe chronicles what has been going on over the past week around the club, more content on the youth development aspect of the club (to add to the already good updates from DH). iFollow isn't really worth it for anything other than seeing live games which means 4k worth of season ticket holders are missed out on
I worked in the media department a full decade ago and the lack of quality content was the same back then. The view on Player (as it was called before iFollow) was always, “Nah, it’s just for people abroad and outside Oxfordshire to listen to the games and that innit, no point in even doing any of our own stuff on it”. We could only produce ANY form of video content on one of the old Flip cameras and a fairly basic Windows laptop - both of which were very kindly donated to us by supporters - because the club refused to put a single pound into it. I think even the tripod and the bag to carry the laptop in was a gift, and maybe even the 3G dongle we had to use to do galleries and reports on a match day. We were told that if we were going to even bother doing anything to only speak to the manager plus a player on the normal press day - Monday for a Tuesday game, Thursday for a Saturday game - plus any new signing interviews and that was about it. Occasionally we would sneak in extra player interviews or go a bit rogue, like when I went and did a video in GAME in Cowley with Jake Wright, Rhys Day and Damian Batt around FIFA 11 coming out, which was after we were back in the league so the angle was ‘We’re back on FIFA’, but even then these were rare and frowned upon. We could also only edit on the built-in Windows software, which was a bag of turds. Eventually we got so hacked off with the whole process that we started using as many ridiculous edits and cut effects as we could. I remember doing a very inappropriate ‘star swipe’ transition on a Chris Wilder interview that was completely at odds with the tone, because after a full year of working like that the entire thing was a bit of a p*ss take. I used to campaign tirelessly for us to spend more time and resources on digital content because at the time we had over 6,000 season ticket holders, and my view was always that if we could get even a quarter of them to spend £30 a year on extra content it was worth pursuing. Plus even more exiles would follow, let alone the ST holders we could appeal to, because the content would provide more value and more subscribers would organically sign up as a result. I also tried multiple times to discuss offering Player as part of an increased season ticket package, ie buy a season of Player at the same time as you get your ST and the subscription add-on would be half price, but nobody was ever interested in even discussing it. That it’s nearly 2021 and nothing has really moved forward on a lot of those fronts isn’t great. It’s an almost exclusively digital world, more so than ever after this year, but there’s still nowhere near enough emphasis on it from the media and comms side. From a marketing and branding standpoint the digital role is arguably the single most important position in any football club that isn’t related to the coaching and playing staff. That we very much make do and cobble bits together on that side, so long after those original failings, but have a programme editor on staff is backwards. There really needs to be greater emphasis on where the resources go - you can be limited and still make the best of what you have. We’ve never really done that.

It's must be very hard for Chris and his team to strike the balance between fan and employee, I certainly wouldn't fancy that task. He's an exceptionally nice bloke and must work incredibly hard, covering the work, I suspect, of multiple people.

I have little doubt that the budget he has to work to doesn't stretch too far which, if that is true, means he would be very limited in what he can produce. But, the content is just a repeat of itself, mainly telling Karl and then hearing Karl say the word 'care' over and over again; it's grating and not worth the subscription.
Chris is a good bloke - he’s a mate and he loves the club - but even without considering the fact that I like stroking his head (behave) nobody in his position could be anything approaching confrontational. He’s the internal media guy and is essentially the public relations manager in charge of making sure that anything going out is in a good light, so he can’t do anything but be positive. Anybody at any club in that role is essentially a cheerleader - they’re not going to pay anybody a salary to have a ruck and slag the manager or players off. The local media are the only ones in a position to provide any sort of friction or a slightly rougher edge, which is why I don’t like the fact that somebody like PRB is involved on a home match day. Even Nathan being the stadium announcer is a bit iffy in principle, but I’ve seen him rub enough people up in the past to know that he’s capable of asking things that need to be asked, or giving somebody an elbow, despite that slight crossover. I think he’s too taken in by Robinson and I’ve suggested that to his face - we used to see and speak to each other most home games and that’ll still be the case in the future - but he’s a good broadcaster who will push buttons when he gets to a certain point. In terms of Chris or anyone else on the payroll, though... can’t happen. Nor should it, really. I do agree that the content could be more imaginative and unique, even if it’ll never be something capable of initiating a ‘backstage brawl’ after a bad game.

That said, I would pay good money to see the occasional WWE style scuffle. The thought of Robinson or one of the players giving CW a body slam in the showers, before CW turns the tide and hits them with a chair before choking them with a boot lace, is a delight.
 
I worked in the media department a full decade ago and the lack of quality content was the same back then. The view on Player (as it was called before iFollow) was always, “Nah, it’s just for people abroad and outside Oxfordshire to listen to the games and that innit, no point in even doing any of our own stuff on it”. We could only produce ANY form of video content on one of the old Flip cameras and a fairly basic Windows laptop - both of which were very kindly donated to us by supporters - because the club refused to put a single pound into it. I think even the tripod and the bag to carry the laptop in was a gift, and maybe even the 3G dongle we had to use to do galleries and reports on a match day. We were told that if we were going to even bother doing anything to only speak to the manager plus a player on the normal press day - Monday for a Tuesday game, Thursday for a Saturday game - plus any new signing interviews and that was about it. Occasionally we would sneak in extra player interviews or go a bit rogue, like when I went and did a video in GAME in Cowley with Jake Wright, Rhys Day and Damian Batt around FIFA 11 coming out, which was after we were back in the league so the angle was ‘We’re back on FIFA’, but even then these were rare and frowned upon. We could also only edit on the built-in Windows software, which was a bag of turds. Eventually we got so hacked off with the whole process that we started using as many ridiculous edits and cut effects as we could. I remember doing a very inappropriate ‘star swipe’ transition on a Chris Wilder interview that was completely at odds with the tone, because after a full year of working like that the entire thing was a bit of a p*ss take. I used to campaign tirelessly for us to spend more time and resources on digital content because at the time we had over 6,000 season ticket holders, and my view was always that if we could get even a quarter of them to spend £30 a year on extra content it was worth pursuing. Plus even more exiles would follow, let alone the ST holders we could appeal to, because the content would provide more value and more subscribers would organically sign up as a result. I also tried multiple times to discuss offering Player as part of an increased season ticket package, ie buy a season of Player at the same time as you get your ST and the subscription add-on would be half price, but nobody was ever interested in even discussing it. That it’s nearly 2021 and nothing has really moved forward on a lot of those fronts isn’t great. It’s an almost exclusively digital world, more so than ever after this year, but there’s still nowhere near enough emphasis on it from the media and comms side. From a marketing and branding standpoint the digital role is arguably the single most important position in any football club that isn’t related to the coaching and playing staff. That we very much make do and cobble bits together on that side, so long after those original failings, but have a programme editor on staff is backwards. There really needs to be greater emphasis on where the resources go - you can be limited and still make the best of what you have. We’ve never really done that.


Chris is a good bloke - he’s a mate and he loves the club - but even without considering the fact that I like stroking his head (behave) nobody in his position could be anything approaching confrontational. He’s the internal media guy and is essentially the public relations manager in charge of making sure that anything going out is in a good light, so he can’t do anything but be positive. Anybody at any club in that role is essentially a cheerleader - they’re not going to pay anybody a salary to have a ruck and slag the manager or players off. The local media are the only ones in a position to provide any sort of friction or a slightly rougher edge, which is why I don’t like the fact that somebody like PRB is involved on a home match day. Even Nathan being the stadium announcer is a bit iffy in principle, but I’ve seen him rub enough people up in the past to know that he’s capable of asking things that need to be asked, or giving somebody an elbow, despite that slight crossover. I think he’s too taken in by Robinson and I’ve suggested that to his face - we used to see and speak to each other most home games and that’ll still be the case in the future - but he’s a good broadcaster who will push buttons when he gets to a certain point. In terms of Chris or anyone else on the payroll, though... can’t happen. Nor should it, really. I do agree that the content could be more imaginative and unique, even if it’ll never be something capable of initiating a ‘backstage brawl’ after a bad game.

That said, I paid good money to see the occasional WWE style scuffle. The sight of Robinson or one of the players giving CW a body slam in the showers, before CW turned the tide and hit them with a chair before choking them with a boot lace, is in my special video collection

I corrected the errors for you.
A wise & erudite post about content that needs to attract folk. (y)
 
....and I was that donor (not the laptop). I remember the tripod was a significantly more sturdy than the Flip camera but I got fed up of seeing the footage shaking all over the place.
 
To be fair I think Eastwood would have kept a clean sheet tonight, that has to be one of the most impotent opponents we’ve faced since our last clean sheet. I actually thought Stevens looked a bit shaky, nearly fumbled one easy cross, a couple of moments of indecision venturing out of his area and there were one or two crosses, head height, that came straight across the line of the six yard box with Stevens nowhere. He had good moments too but I wouldn’t say we’ve just seen our new long term goalkeeper out there tonight.
He definitely would not have kept a clean sheet, the chance that Ipswich had when Stevens rushed out of his goal to intervene, Eastwood would have been rooted to his goal line, one nil Ipswich
 
He definitely would not have kept a clean sheet, the chance that Ipswich had when Stevens rushed out of his goal to intervene, Eastwood would have been rooted to his goal line, one nil Ipswich
Do you mean Simon Eastwood, Oxford hero, one of our best ever keepers, though off form at the moment? Or some despised player from another team?
 
Roll on Saturday another home game
Let’s see how we manage
Ah......it’s against Hull, top of the table .....
 
Do you mean Simon Eastwood, Oxford hero, one of our best ever keepers, though off form at the moment? Or some despised player from another team?

One of our best ever, not for me. Wouldn’t even call him a club legend like some are.

In fact, from seeing them play, I can give you at least 5 others better.
A good, loyal servant and a good shot stopper but that’s it.
 
One of our best ever, not for me. Wouldn’t even call him a club legend like some are.

In fact, from seeing them play, I can give you at least 5 others better.
A good, loyal servant and a good shot stopper but that’s it.
Roy Burton was before my time and I don’t remember much about Alan Judge. Phil Whitehead was better, other than that he’s up there with any other established keeper we had.
 
I worked in the media department a full decade ago and the lack of quality content was the same back then. The view on Player (as it was called before iFollow) was always, “Nah, it’s just for people abroad and outside Oxfordshire to listen to the games and that innit, no point in even doing any of our own stuff on it”. We could only produce ANY form of video content on one of the old Flip cameras and a fairly basic Windows laptop - both of which were very kindly donated to us by supporters - because the club refused to put a single pound into it. I think even the tripod and the bag to carry the laptop in was a gift, and maybe even the 3G dongle we had to use to do galleries and reports on a match day. We were told that if we were going to even bother doing anything to only speak to the manager plus a player on the normal press day - Monday for a Tuesday game, Thursday for a Saturday game - plus any new signing interviews and that was about it. Occasionally we would sneak in extra player interviews or go a bit rogue, like when I went and did a video in GAME in Cowley with Jake Wright, Rhys Day and Damian Batt around FIFA 11 coming out, which was after we were back in the league so the angle was ‘We’re back on FIFA’, but even then these were rare and frowned upon. We could also only edit on the built-in Windows software, which was a bag of turds. Eventually we got so hacked off with the whole process that we started using as many ridiculous edits and cut effects as we could. I remember doing a very inappropriate ‘star swipe’ transition on a Chris Wilder interview that was completely at odds with the tone, because after a full year of working like that the entire thing was a bit of a p*ss take. I used to campaign tirelessly for us to spend more time and resources on digital content because at the time we had over 6,000 season ticket holders, and my view was always that if we could get even a quarter of them to spend £30 a year on extra content it was worth pursuing. Plus even more exiles would follow, let alone the ST holders we could appeal to, because the content would provide more value and more subscribers would organically sign up as a result. I also tried multiple times to discuss offering Player as part of an increased season ticket package, ie buy a season of Player at the same time as you get your ST and the subscription add-on would be half price, but nobody was ever interested in even discussing it. That it’s nearly 2021 and nothing has really moved forward on a lot of those fronts isn’t great. It’s an almost exclusively digital world, more so than ever after this year, but there’s still nowhere near enough emphasis on it from the media and comms side. From a marketing and branding standpoint the digital role is arguably the single most important position in any football club that isn’t related to the coaching and playing staff. That we very much make do and cobble bits together on that side, so long after those original failings, but have a programme editor on staff is backwards. There really needs to be greater emphasis on where the resources go - you can be limited and still make the best of what you have. We’ve never really done that.


Chris is a good bloke - he’s a mate and he loves the club - but even without considering the fact that I like stroking his head (behave) nobody in his position could be anything approaching confrontational. He’s the internal media guy and is essentially the public relations manager in charge of making sure that anything going out is in a good light, so he can’t do anything but be positive. Anybody at any club in that role is essentially a cheerleader - they’re not going to pay anybody a salary to have a ruck and slag the manager or players off. The local media are the only ones in a position to provide any sort of friction or a slightly rougher edge, which is why I don’t like the fact that somebody like PRB is involved on a home match day. Even Nathan being the stadium announcer is a bit iffy in principle, but I’ve seen him rub enough people up in the past to know that he’s capable of asking things that need to be asked, or giving somebody an elbow, despite that slight crossover. I think he’s too taken in by Robinson and I’ve suggested that to his face - we used to see and speak to each other most home games and that’ll still be the case in the future - but he’s a good broadcaster who will push buttons when he gets to a certain point. In terms of Chris or anyone else on the payroll, though... can’t happen. Nor should it, really. I do agree that the content could be more imaginative and unique, even if it’ll never be something capable of initiating a ‘backstage brawl’ after a bad game.

That said, I would pay good money to see the occasional WWE style scuffle. The thought of Robinson or one of the players giving CW a body slam in the showers, before CW turns the tide and hits them with a chair before choking them with a boot lace, is a delight.
Great post this! If you want to stay relevant in this day and age you need a significant online presence, a reason for people to keep coming back (and ultimately spending money), unfortunately, I agree, this side of the club doesn't seem to have changed at the same pace as the world has in the last god knows how many years.
 
Chris Williams is employed by the club, and writes report (or programme notes) for the club. So these will generally be more upbeat than comments on here (even mine!). But let's not forget that Chris is first and foremost an Oxford fan and works incredibly hard behind the scenes to give us the interaction we have. Without him we almost certainly would have half of the media content or the fan engagement we had prior to covid. If you want a hard hitting critical review of our performance then the club website probably isn't the place to go!!
I was not criticising Chris Williams per se. I'm well aware of the contribution he makes behind the scenes. I also accept that match reports on the club website are unlikely to be critical. However, they are read by a wider audience who take a more casual interest in the club than those of us on here do and therefor need to be factual. I have never taken issue before with anything he has written and consider him to be an excellent writer often displaying an engaging sense of humour. On this occasion though, to describe last night's performance as one of high conviction was an embellishment I found hard to accept. But if that is genuinely his view, then he is of course entitled to it.
 
Rubbish, For our sakes, I hope he has a blinding stint between the post. His kicking was at times wayward, and he didn't have any real danger to contend with. If you read what I put, although some people read what they want to see, I said lets wait and see how things go against Hull, a team that will prove more of a test, more typical of teams in this division, especially with how the defence has been.

Here's hoping Ole' Shakey' has a great festive period, and doesn't drive us"Crazy"
Obviously not bullying anyone but do you really need to be so negative and come up with unfunny and actually trying to put down silly ' nickname ' he is far from the finished article but the want to knock is quite astounding.
 
Roy Burton was before my time and I don’t remember much about Alan Judge. Phil Whitehead was better, other than that he’s up there with any other established keeper we
A good keeper at the level we are at , Steve Hardwick , Peter Hucker better keepers at the highest level .
 
A good keeper at the level we are at , Steve Hardwick , Peter Hucker better keepers at the highest level .
Hucker was about five foot six! And didn’t go on anywhere after us. I think it’s very difficult to assess keepers as they aren’t in play the whole time and can’t be compared with the rest of the players on the field.
 
Roy Burton was before my time and I don’t remember much about Alan Judge. Phil Whitehead was better, other than that he’s up there with any other established keeper we had.
Jim Barron was IMHO our best ever keeper. I appreciate that many on here won't have seen him. Followed by 'Burty' I've seen them all from Harry Fearnley onwards!!
 
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