Another great game to watch.
Starting with the warm up, I noticed an Oxford player with a really sweet left foot and had to check who it was. It was Bodin. And he brought that foot into the game.
Clearly the change in system in the latter part of the first half won the match, and we were very fortunate to go in at half time 1-1. Was this managerial genius. Or was it finally a manager being released from his stubbornness. It was clear after last week and in previous games that McGuane with any sort of defensive responsibility was a complete liability and he was hopeless positionally yesterday and this allowed Sheff Wed to run all over us. But this is nothing new. It happened only 7 days previously, and I said if we didn't have anyone to fill the DM role it has to be 3 CBs rather than McGuane anywhere near defensive duties. Finally it happened and McGuane became a different player being allowed to go 20 yards further up the pitch and actually do what he is actually good at in the attacking areas.
And I am going to be critical with the set up to this match again. To have only 6 subs on the bench, which included players that seemingly have no future at the club. is very poor when we are in a transfer window. If we are that short of personnel you must try harder with recruitment in the week prior to matches.
Nice to see that we scored 3 goals all of which were put away from 6 yards or less out. These are exactly the sort of goals we need to be scoring rather than keep relying on perfect passing moves leading to an unbelievable team goal. It is very encouraging that we are creating these sort of chances and that they were put away.
Sheff Wed's goals were very high quality team goals, among the best that we have seen against us recently and the sort that we like to try and create and score. Sometimes there is little you can do about opposition goals like those.