12 months ago we went to Accrington and put in one of the worst defensive performances I can remember seeing as an Oxford fan. Players were playing badly and making awful basic mistakes, players were playing out of position, we had been in a terrible run of form since Christmas 2018, tactics were wrong and we were spiralling towards relegation. It took that beating to knock us into shape and realise we needed to pull our socks up and to the manager, coaches and players credit we went on a superb run from that dismal display to the end of the season.
We have now just suffered another beating conceding 4 like we did at Accrington. We are in a similar vein of poor results to last season. The circumstances of the Peterborough defeat are very different though and rather than trying to salvage a season and ward off relegation like last year the opportunity for a great season is still achievable. This is where the manager makes his money, there can be no sentiment with the players as he needs to be bold with his decisions to get us on a similar run to what we had last season and galvanise things again. Whether that is 5 at the back, and I find it difficult to understand how Moore is not in the team, or 2 up front, dropping the injured players until they are fully ready to come back, or something else, something needs to be done to change it and freshen it up. The one common theme all season is that we don't score anywhere near enough scruffy goals, even in September/October when we were scoring goals for fun a large proportion of those were worldies from outside the box. Tactics can change all of that. There is still a great chance to do something this season, and if we do make the play offs or better the manager will be rightly lauded a success.
This is a free hit to reach the play offs, the worst that can happen is we finish mid table which is probably where we were going to finish at the start of the season anyway and that at least would allow the board to give themselves a pat on the back with a job well done. It could be a good time to get some of the highly rated youngsters involved and try and find a gem amongst them which in turn gives them a sell on value and possibly changes what players we need to look for in the Summer.