General Oxford United Squad 2023/24

[captainox]

Re the squad. Teddy Mfuni is still shown as being part of the first team squad on the OWS. Anyone?

Not overly clear whether he is still around.

Signed an 18month contract which would run out at the end of this season.
Went to Spain in pre-season and given a squad number. Did also trial for Gloucester during pre-season but nothing came of it.

 

[captainox]

Does someone have a list of the current squad and contract status? Could we make it a sticky thread?
I'm trying to keep up with who is on loan (Beadle for instance) and who is "our" player.
It seems the club is being a bit more cagey about announcing contract details, such as for instance 2 year deal with contract extension.
Last update was just that Elliot Moore had signed a new long term deal.

This is the latest view I have on my spreadsheet as of the rumoured McGuane option.
Plenty of players with contract details not announced or just described as "long term"

Not 100% on the youths, but I think is pretty close.

 

[Wallop]

This is the latest view I have on my spreadsheet as of the rumoured McGuane option.
Plenty of players with contract details not announced or just described as "long term"

Not 100% on the youths, but I think is pretty close.

The club do have an option on McGuane

 

[MarkG]

If my counting is correct we’ve had 12 different scorers in our 11 league games so far.
Harris 3
Brannagan 3
Goodrham 3
Leigh 4
Mills 1
Edwards 1
Bodin 2
Rodrigues 1
Moore 1
Stevens 1
Brown 1
Long 1
Own Goal 1

 

[captainox]

 

[battman]

Wonder whether it’s worth adopting a forum-standard for what a ‘long term deal’ could be? Otherwise before too long every deal will be a question mark.

As a conservative estimate it’d be no shorter than 2 years, and is likely to be 3 years. Could also be 4 years for some of the key players. Feel like 5 years for a League One club is too long.

So we could use something like ‘until at least 2026’ for Brown’s new deal, for example.

 

[MarkG]

What do the asterisks next to contract end year signify?
Why do four letter months get spelled out in full, but anything longer gets shortened to three letters?

 

[SteMerritt]

Why do four letter months get spelled out in full, but anything longer gets shortened to three letters?

This level of pedantry I for one heartily applaud.

 

[ZeroTheHero]

It's increasingly difficult to get much idea of who is OOC when (despite the sterling effort above), when signings are starting to be announced with no contract length and contract extensions are being described as 'long-term' or 'longer-term' - I suspect it will just get more opaque as time goes on.

I suppose the question is 'Does it matter?' to supporters. I'd argue that it does, because it allows us to see the forward planning being applied to the squad and would give us no transparency of some of the frankly daft deals handed out by the previous manager if the same policy had been being applied then.

 

[tonyw]

I suppose the question is 'Does it matter?' to supporters. I'd argue that it does, because it allows us to see the forward planning being applied to the squad and would give us no transparency of some of the frankly daft deals handed out by the previous manager if the same policy had been being applied then.

I think it does.

I find it really frustrating the way the club is now not telling us how long anyone's contract is. They're obviously adopting an attitude of "Just trust us, and don't worry about it", but for some of us, part of the fun is looking to the future and thinking about who is going to be with us next year or the year after......
And, as you point out, it adds a layer of accountability when they screw up and hand out ridiculous contracts.

Maybe this is just an American attitude, but I can take any player on any team over here and look up not only how long their contract is, but how much they're being paid. It's a whole different level of transparency.

 

[captainox]

What do the asterisks next to contract end year signify?
Why do four letter months get spelled out in full, but anything longer gets shortened to three letters?

Asterisks represent club options, as included in the notes for each player with an asterisk.

I'd expect someone who paid such attention to detail with length of months to have worked that out

 

[captainox]

I think it does.

I find it really frustrating the way the club is now not telling us how long anyone's contract is. They're obviously adopting an attitude of "Just trust us, and don't worry about it", but for some of us, part of the fun is looking to the future and thinking about who is going to be with us next year or the year after......
And, as you point out, it adds a layer of accountability when they screw up and hand out ridiculous contracts.

Maybe this is just an American attitude, but I can take any player on any team over here and look up not only how long their contract is, but how much they're being paid. It's a whole different level of transparency.

Ed Waldron's interview on The Dub shed some light on why we've started to do it.

BBC Radio Oxford - The Dub: An Oxford United podcast, Transfers and Contracts Special

Robyn and The Dub team discuss future recruitment, priorities and more!

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[MarkG]

This level of pedantry I for one heartily applaud.

Back in the Conference Days I used to write some match previews for RageOnline and there was (and probably still is) a style guide. Things like spelling out numbers one to twelve and using digits above 13, how to refer to other teams etc.

 

[tonyw]

Ed Waldron's interview on The Dub shed some light on why we've started to do it.

BBC Radio Oxford - The Dub: An Oxford United podcast, Transfers and Contracts Special

Robyn and The Dub team discuss future recruitment, priorities and more!

www.bbc.co.uk

His logic is that they don't announce contract lengths because they don't want to give any free information to competitive teams that might want to sign them.

But if I'm say, John Mousinho, and I fancy signing Marcus McGuane - it's going to take me precisely two minutes to phone up his agent and ask when his contract ends. Which is maybe twice as long as it would have taken previously to look it up online.

So it's a very, very minor annoyance to other clubs - but it pisses off your own fans because they are then completely in the dark about when their players might be leaving.
(Ed did at least say in that interview that it was his decision.......so we know who to aim our anger and frustration at!)

Big picture - if I was the FA, I would mandate that all clubs had to announce all transfer fees, loan fees, contract length and wages publicly. It would add an extra level of transparency and accountability to the whole proceedings. And might help getting fans on the back of their clubs if they're paying bonkers amounts (or being tighter than they need to be)...........as it stands, terrible managers are able to do dumb things and put their clubs at risk whilst their fan bases are none the wiser.

 

[LeftSideLarry]

His logic is that they don't announce contract lengths because they don't want to give any free information to competitive teams that might want to sign them.

But if I'm say, John Mousinho, and I fancy signing Marcus McGuane - it's going to take me precisely two minutes to phone up his agent and ask when his contract ends. Which is maybe twice as long as it would have taken previously to look it up online.

So it's a very, very minor annoyance to other clubs - but it pisses off your own fans because they are then completely in the dark about when their players might be leaving.
(Ed did at least say in that interview that it was his decision.......so we know who to aim our anger and frustration at!)

Big picture - if I was the FA, I would mandate that all clubs had to announce all transfer fees, loan fees, contract length and wages publicly. It would add an extra level of transparency and accountability to the whole proceedings. And might help getting fans on the back of their clubs if they're paying bonkers amounts (or being tighter than they need to be)...........as it stands, terrible managers are able to do dumb things and put their clubs at risk whilst their fan bases are none the wiser.

I’m not pissed off by it. Other than you, is anyone?

By the way, as hills go, it’s a very small one upon which to die and I salute you for it.

 

[RgYellows]

His logic is that they don't announce contract lengths because they don't want to give any free information to competitive teams that might want to sign them.

But if I'm say, John Mousinho, and I fancy signing Marcus McGuane - it's going to take me precisely two minutes to phone up his agent and ask when his contract ends. Which is maybe twice as long as it would have taken previously to look it up online.

Which is great if you start from knowing you want to sign McGuane, but what if you start from knowing you want to get a bargain by looking at players with expiring deals?

There is no one on this forum who has more insight into the transfer process than Waldron.

 

[Berliner]

Which is great if you start from knowing you want to sign McGuane, but what if you start from knowing you want to get a bargain by looking at players with expiring deals?

There is no one on this forum who has more insight into the transfer process than Waldron.

Everyone in the business knows how long the deal of every player in the league is, it's only us proles that are officially kept in the dark.

 

[ZeroTheHero]

Which is great if you start from knowing you want to sign McGuane, but what if you start from knowing you want to get a bargain by looking at players with expiring deals?

There is no one on this forum who has more insight into the transfer process than Waldron.

But then what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, as my old dad never once said. Once everyone does it (and I don't have enough insight into the way football clubs identifies players to know if they will) then nobody will be informed of anyone's contract status. Except of course they will, because any player who is getting towards the end of his contract will have his agent phoning around 'informally' letting clubs know they might be available. As Tony says, it will only be us supporters who don't know. I find it slightly irritating rather than being pissed off by it, but it does seems a pity we will no longer be able to think about the shape of the squad looking forward.

 

[tonyw]

Which is great if you start from knowing you want to sign McGuane, but what if you start from knowing you want to get a bargain by looking at players with expiring deals?

There is no one on this forum who has more insight into the transfer process than Waldron.

Not saying there is - but he's judged by one thing and one thing alone, and that's the quality of our transfer business. And if he can get even a tiny marginal boost (and I can't see that the benefit can be more than this, for reasons that Berliner and ZtH point out) from keeping our contract lengths secret, then he's incentivized to do it.

But the downside, which is not his problem, is that this involves keeping the club's paying customers permanently in the dark about how long our players are contracted to be here. Which is why I'm a bit surprised that Tim Williams agreed to it, given that he otherwise seems to try and promote transparency and fan engagement.


To think of a practical example of why it could be a bad idea - imagine if we'd only been told that Josh Murphy had signed "a long term deal", rather than the two years we all know he's on? As it is, everyone is fairly chill, knowing that he'll be gone after this season and anything we get this year is gravy. But if we didn't know - and thought that he might have three more years under contract with us on a silly wage - the fans might be more inclined to give him hell for poor performance in the hope that he might agree to a mutual termination.......

 

[Scotchegg]

...the fans might be more inclined to give him hell for poor performance in the hope that he might agree to a mutual termination.......

Seems to be a pretty good reason not to share this information if this is the potential outcome!