Home Match Day Thread 15/4/2023 L1: OUFC v Bolton Wanderers

[uptheus]

We’ve not been relegated yet. Don’t deliver a post-mortem before the patient’s dead.

If we’re honest with ourselves it’s looking very much like we will be relegated.

Bolton had a number of players out yesterday snd we still couldn’t beat them. Lose Tuesday night and the fat lady will start warming up.

I just don’t see where the goals are going to come from which would ultimately lead to a win or two that we need.

Manning has got to try Smith and go 2 up top!

 

[Eaststanding]

We’re not down, yet, and we won’t be until it’s a mathematical certainty, so let’s not let the players feel the negativity from this forum. A massive slice of luck, skill or both is needed on Tuesday, that and a lot of the graft and guile we showed yesterday. Murphy and Findlay cannot start on Tuesday and if the squad do nothing else in training tomorrow they need to fill the box with players, pump in ball after ball and learn to get the f*****g ball in the net, somehow, under pressure. Again and again.

 

[Jaxon]

Findlay gets a lot of stick on here, but with the current squad, he is one of the first on my team sheet. Yes, he is not comfortable on the ball, and his distribution is far from great, but his defensive qualities for League 1 are of a very high standard. He does not lose much in the air or on the ground, and since he has come back into the side, we look far more solid at the back. If he was born in Oxfordshire, he'd probably be treated differently (e.g. Long, G.O'D, etc.).

You obviously don’t watch him much
He is bar far the worse defender in the team

 

[Jaxon]

South stand lower, pretty evident from most of the ground I would have thought though.

!

 

[Paul Cannell]

we have to devote every ounce of effort in keeping in this division.

I say we can do it.

This is wonderful. After sleeping until the start of March then having the best flap ever (are your boxers clean now), you're the brave little drummer boy.

What practical effort will you devote every ounce of to keeping us in this division?

Seigneurage is a marvellous thing, Darling but leading the troops to victory from the trenches seems like a long-departed fantasy. Go for it!

 

[ChamonixOx]

You obviously don’t watch him much
He is bar far the worse defender in the team!

Probably more than you as I watch every game on iFollow. You lost credibility when you said worst by far. Even the most clumsy of observers would not have made such a remark when you have people like Anderson, Fleming, and I’d be tempted to add Long to that list, to compare!

 

[mooro]

he was appointed in October, i bet wed be nowhere near the bottom four if we had changed manager at the same time.

..and had Olly Watkins in the squad

 

[yellowbow]

Couldn't and then didn't want to post yesterday, just so hacked off with the whole thing. Fed up with leaving football grounds feeling pissed off, again and again.
Robinson, Williams and Ferguson are culpable. The owners are invisible. The team is lacklustre and little scrutiny is required to see that the squad, if it can be deemed a squad, has simply not got the resilience to provide a realistic way out of the dilemma in which we find ourselves. We are dependant on luck and the results of other clubs around us as to whether we survive in league 1.

And, judging by the number of fans, leaving the ground yesterday, who tried to hurl themselves under the wheels of my car as we exited the car park, depression has spread to all. I have to assume it was as a result of some sort of suicide attempt as why else would you walk in front of a moving vehicle being directed by the traffic munchkins?

Williams exposed his total ineptitude and incompetence as a CEO when he said that the January transfer window was a good one and the squad was stronger at the end of it than the beginning. And that was before showing his total ignorance on the role of a DoF.

And then we had the KR public relations circus at the training ground where he apparently sat, stars in his eyes, giggling at Robinsons jokes…

He couldn’t have made a bigger hash of it all in his short tenure if he tried. A chimpanzee could’ve done a better job.

Then we have Ferguson… the only time he’s piped up, other than the ghost written program notes, is to say we were about to go on a ‘96 style charge for promotion and also to ‘like’ a post about how good a job KR was doing about a week before he was finally sacked…

The pair of them, within a few months of taking up their posts, are overseeing our plunge into league 2.

The two clowns need to get out of our club asap.

 

[holdsteady]

Probably more than you as I watch every game on iFollow. You lost credibility when you said worst by far. Even the most clumsy of observers would not have made such a remark when you have people like Anderson, Fleming, and I’d be tempted to add Long to that list, to compare!

You pretty much summed him up. He is decent from a defensive perspective while being terrible on the ball, if he wasn't good at defending he would never be a professional footballer as he was never making it on his technical ability. He is the sort of defender you have in there purely to defend and organise, you never use him as an outlet, we do because we have four defenders who are not great at passing or bringing the ball out.

 

[Andy1505]

Yes Manning has done well and steadied the sinking ship, and we have tightened up at the back which is a good thing, but unfortunately it has been at the expense of us having any attacking threat.

But I think we also need to remember the role that many/most of the players have played in this terrible season, as the truth is far too many of them have been absolutely woeful and have under performed week in week out! Whatever bad job KR did in putting the squad and team together, these players have not performed as us fans should be entitled to expect considering the money some of them are reputed to be on.

Defenders have made far too many basic mistakes, midfielders (I'm going to excuse Cam here as he is the only one who seems to keep going) have not created chances, or tracked back or got forward and supported, and whoever has played as the strikers haven't scored! And Easty has made a lot of errors!

The whole team has been woeful, yes the squad is shocking and Manning has been given a bad hand to deal with, but the players can't be excluded from the criticism. Murphy is being singled out rightly so for his lack of effort and time on the pitch but whoever has played out wide haven't really done much in his place!

We won't be able to afford half of these players when we go down, and maybe that's what has to happen, a complete rebuild and a new squad. If we hold on to a core of players then we should be good enough to compete to come back up but who knows what sort of budget we will have next year.

It's all a complete mess. Ferguson and Williams are as much to blame as KR and should hang their heads in shame at what they have done to our beloved club.

 

[ZeroTheHero]

Yes Manning has done well and steadied the sinking ship, and we have tightened up at the back which is a good thing, but unfortunately it has been at the expense of us having any attacking threat.

Not sure I really agree with that, in that our attacking threat had virtually disappeared in the last days of KRs tenure anyway - and he had just loaned Matt Taylor out as well (I know Taylor was having a bad season, but loaning him out without getting a proper replacement seems like deliberate sabotage). We did manage 24 shots on goal on Saturday - albeit most of them straight at their keeper or off target- we just don't have anyone who can actually score, there was a least a threat there.

IMO we need to start matches in a less passive way, and need to try to start more on the front foot.

 

[holdsteady]

Not sure I really agree with that, in that out attacking threat had virtually disappeared in the last days of KRs tenure anyway - and he had just loaned Matt Taylor out as well (I know Taylor was having a bad season, but loaning him out without getting a proper replacement seems like deliberate sabotage). We did manage 24 shots on goal on Saturday - albeit most of them straight at their keeper or off target- we just don't have anyone who can actually score, there was a least a threat there.

IMO we need to start matches in a less passive way, and need to try to start more on the front foot.

Exactly, you read that the first goal is really important in football and then we start as if we haven't changed the clocks yet. Need to to come out from the off against Pompey with the higher press and tempo, 15 games of starting slowly has told us that it doesn't work.

 

[Sarge]

you couldnt make it up- Bolton's keeper has been included in L1 team of the day after Saturdays game!

Keeper at centre of red card debate included in team of the day

A GOALKEEPER at the centre of a red card debate has been included in a ‘team of the day’.

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