Away Match Day Thread 12/03/24 - L1: Bolton Wanderers v OUFC

Who was your MOTM?

  • Total voters
    136
  • Poll closed .
Leysboy said:
I already did.

Only the three I know of. There could be More, it looks like a team infested, and frankly given up.
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I have to be honest I can’t remember seeing so many unhappy players on an Oxford team as I did tonight. You were right all along mate.
 
West Oxon U’s said:
The really obvious fact from tonight is that the players are clearly not playing for Des Buckingham and that is a huge problem.

The performances are nowhere near being acceptable - and they have not been since he was appointed - but when the players don’t want to play for the manager or believe in the Manager you have to part company. That’s the harsh reality of the situation.

It is simply not working and it will get worse. Bring in Michael Duff or someone of that ilk and prepare for 2024-2025.
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Good shout but he did only last 6 months at Swansea.
 
WEYellow said:
Sat in Sandbach services refuelling for the remaining 2 hours drive home, god the things we do for our club.

Haven’t really read through what’s been said, but can’t imagine my feelings are much different to the majority. It was a disgusting performance from top to bottom, the initial setup was wrong IMO and the gaps between our midfielders was staggering, I can’t believe nothing changed after the first 15. Our full backs were way too narrow and the first goal proved it, second was an absolute omnishambles with both Leigh and Cumming making huge errors. Third goal, okay, that was unlucky, but where was the closing down? the urgency? Fourth goal, absolutely torn apart - probably the best goal we’ve conceded this season. Fifth goal, after the third you close down the edge of the box, but didn’t happen, felt like Cumming could have done better but haven’t seen it back, doubt I’ll ever bother checking. It is painfully obvious that we are STILL lacking in the positions for the last 5 or 6 seasons - a proper CDM, an authoritative CB and a right back. Matete isn’t the answer, he was never the man for any of those roles but there was ecstasy when he signed, anyone who had watched him for a sustained period would know he’s in the Mcguane mould. Panic signing. Brown is a loose cannon and unreliable against good teams. Moore needs legs beside him, not some league 1 codger who will only go downhill in his career from now. Long, the less said about him the better.

The thing that upsets me the most though is the final whistle, players stood joking with their Bolton counterparts, ambling over and barely looking apologetic. Dale looked royally fucked off but apart from that there didn’t look an ounce of hurt on the faces of the players, that ultimately is what the fans remember. Is it a mentality thing? Do we have leaders in our squad? Moore, Brannagan, Mcguane, Long, Brown, Bodin, Murphy - all part of our abysmal run last year, all part of abysmal runs in previous seasons, why does it keep happening? Why has Brannagan not left to go elsewhere? Does he believe he has it in him? We can see the ability, but would he rather stay where he has it easy? He seems to be the exception to most of the fanbase, but if anything he’s part of the problem. That’s a spine of players who look great with no expectation, but as soon as there’s a bit of pressure they crumble.

I want it to work for Des, I still think he needs time and proper support structure around him, but he simply won’t get it with these clowns in charge, and when the players give up on you it’s usually curtains. I don’t trust this board to even get another appointment right so for me he stays, but there’s so much unnecessary pressure (some self inflicted) on him to deliver a good start to next season.

Another point on the useless C***s that are slowly ripping the soul out of our club, and this is probably a hangover of last weeks fans forum, but how blindingly obvious is it that they save face as the bare minimum and do *nothing* else. It’s so reactive rather than proactive. Oh you think the communication isn’t good? Okay, don’t worry about that lads, we’ll sort it. Oh the support structure for a new manager is shambolic? Don’t worry lads, we paid a hefty release clause for Des, and gave him a brand new (injured) 400k striker who was mooted even before he got here! The assistant manager who Des wanted and had in the building decided to walk from the offer at the last minute? That was HIS personal issue, nothing to do with the fact we offered a basic contract and didn’t trust you were the right man.

I’m not angry as such, I’m just upset. I’m upset that these things keep happening to us, I’m upset these group of players aren’t good enough for what we want, I’m upset that we’ve got one of our own in charge and he hasn’t been supported enough. It shouldn’t come to this where we turn against him, but he will be the fall guy and we’ll rinse and repeat next season with a new manager, with the same core of players who have let us down so often. I’d absolutely love if Des showed a bit of fight and attitude, called people out, got the fans on his side and uses siege mentality to stabilise our season and have a bloody good go at it in the summer, with a whole new core of players who he wants. I don’t think he has it in him to do it though, I think he’s too nice and it’ll be him who’s out the door first when there’s dozens of people who should be gone before him.

It’s just upsetting.

Anyway, engine on, back down the M6. Night all
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Whenever you U's have been kind enough to let me visit your site as I have often done, I've always found that for the most part, U's fans have been welcoming, balanced in their opinions and knowledgeable. Tonight it's a bit of a meltdown.

WE Yellow - you and the others who traipsed up to Lancashire to watch your teams' performance have my utmost respect and sympathy - been there myself when the Wanderers have let me down on numerous occasions.

From our perspective, the Wanderers owed us that performance. Twelve games ago we were 2 points behind the leaders with 3 games in hand - prime position to storm the league - but our form inexplicably fell off a cliff. I say inexplicably, but that's not entirely true as we had a swathe of injuries and suspensions and a punishing schedule - but despite Evatt saying we had the strength in depth to cover it, we just couldn't readjust. We squandered our games in hand, Pompey pulled away and Derby overtook us whilst the rest closed the gap and the form guide for the last 10 games put us at 16th in the league. Coming into this game we were bricking it. We'd played well throughout the barren spell but couldn't convert our chances and got mugged week after week, conceding some comedically bad goals - akin to the second tonight but on a weekly basis, so we had plenty of reason to be worried.

Tonight it finally clicked for us. Maybe the players finally got the message that they were about to blow a superb start to the season? Maybe they actually heard the sort of criticisms about individuals players and the manager similar to those levelled at your team that appear on this site tonight? Or maybe they realised they are now in the last chance saloon as far as the automatics are concerned? Whatever the reason, they came out fully focused and for the first time in ages maintained it for the full game.

There is no doubt that you have some quality players - they just have to find a way for everyone to be on the same hymn sheet and that takes time - it certainly did for us.
Moreover, it could happen overnight as it has for us. I hope that the players and manager read the comments on here tonight. I hope they realise how much it means to the fans. I hope they remember that you're still in with a shout for the playoffs. And above all that they take it to heart and find a way to click as a team again to repay guys like you who spend a lot of money and take a lot of time to travel up and down the country to support them.

Sure we played well tonight, but you deserve a better performance than you got and we both know that the quality players you have can do better than they did.
All the best for the rest of the season. Maybe see you in the playoffs if your lads get it together and we don't beat Derby, Posh, Stevenage and Pompey.
 
Wanderlust2 said:
Whenever you U's have been kind enough to let me visit your site as I have often done, I've always found that for the most part, U's fans have been welcoming, balanced in their opinions and knowledgeable. Tonight it's a bit of a meltdown.

WE Yellow - you and the others who traipsed up to Lancashire to watch your teams' performance have my utmost respect and sympathy - been there myself when the Wanderers have let me down on numerous occasions.

From our perspective, the Wanderers owed us that performance. Twelve games ago we were 2 points behind the leaders with 3 games in hand - prime position to storm the league - but our form inexplicably fell off a cliff. I say inexplicably, but that's not entirely true as we had a swathe of injuries and suspensions and a punishing schedule - but despite Evatt saying we had the strength in depth to cover it, we just couldn't readjust. We squandered our games in hand, Pompey pulled away and Derby overtook us whilst the rest closed the gap and the form guide for the last 10 games put us at 16th in the league. Coming into this game we were bricking it. We'd played well throughout the barren spell but couldn't convert our chances and got mugged week after week, conceding some comedically bad goals - akin to the second tonight but on a weekly basis, so we had plenty of reason to be worried.

Tonight it finally clicked for us. Maybe the players finally got the message that they were about to blow a superb start to the season? Maybe they actually heard the sort of criticisms about individuals players and the manager similar to those levelled at your team that appear on this site tonight? Or maybe they realised they are now in the last chance saloon as far as the automatics are concerned? Whatever the reason, they came out fully focused and for the first time in ages maintained it for the full game.

There is no doubt that you have some quality players - they just have to find a way for everyone to be on the same hymn sheet and that takes time - it certainly did for us.
Moreover, it could happen overnight as it has for us. I hope that the players and manager read the comments on here tonight. I hope they realise how much it means to the fans. I hope they remember that you're still in with a shout for the playoffs. And above all that they take it to heart and find a way to click as a team again to repay guys like you who spend a lot of money and take a lot of time to travel up and down the country to support them.

Sure we played well tonight, but you deserve a better performance than you got and we both know that the quality players you have can do better than they did.
All the best for the rest of the season. Maybe see you in the playoffs if your lads get it together and we don't beat Derby, Posh, Stevenage and Pompey.
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Thanks for your kind words mate. I’ve read your posts in the past and you definitely have the best interests of football fans at heart. We’ve definitely had premature meltdowns on this forum but tonight’s is fully justified imo. I’ve tried to be supportive of our new manager but the deterioration has been happening for quite some time, and although Bolton are obviously a very good team we were abject tonight even by our recently poor standards. There’s not a cat in hells chance of us meeting you in the play offs. And I think you’ll get promoted automatically esp given you had several players missing.
All the best mate.
 
Wanderlust2 said:
Whenever you U's have been kind enough to let me visit your site as I have often done, I've always found that for the most part, U's fans have been welcoming, balanced in their opinions and knowledgeable. Tonight it's a bit of a meltdown.

WE Yellow - you and the others who traipsed up to Lancashire to watch your teams' performance have my utmost respect and sympathy - been there myself when the Wanderers have let me down on numerous occasions.

From our perspective, the Wanderers owed us that performance. Twelve games ago we were 2 points behind the leaders with 3 games in hand - prime position to storm the league - but our form inexplicably fell off a cliff. I say inexplicably, but that's not entirely true as we had a swathe of injuries and suspensions and a punishing schedule - but despite Evatt saying we had the strength in depth to cover it, we just couldn't readjust. We squandered our games in hand, Pompey pulled away and Derby overtook us whilst the rest closed the gap and the form guide for the last 10 games put us at 16th in the league. Coming into this game we were bricking it. We'd played well throughout the barren spell but couldn't convert our chances and got mugged week after week, conceding some comedically bad goals - akin to the second tonight but on a weekly basis, so we had plenty of reason to be worried.

Tonight it finally clicked for us. Maybe the players finally got the message that they were about to blow a superb start to the season? Maybe they actually heard the sort of criticisms about individuals players and the manager similar to those levelled at your team that appear on this site tonight? Or maybe they realised they are now in the last chance saloon as far as the automatics are concerned? Whatever the reason, they came out fully focused and for the first time in ages maintained it for the full game.

There is no doubt that you have some quality players - they just have to find a way for everyone to be on the same hymn sheet and that takes time - it certainly did for us.
Moreover, it could happen overnight as it has for us. I hope that the players and manager read the comments on here tonight. I hope they realise how much it means to the fans. I hope they remember that you're still in with a shout for the playoffs. And above all that they take it to heart and find a way to click as a team again to repay guys like you who spend a lot of money and take a lot of time to travel up and down the country to support them.

Sure we played well tonight, but you deserve a better performance than you got and we both know that the quality players you have can do better than they did.
All the best for the rest of the season. Maybe see you in the playoffs if your lads get it together and we don't beat Derby, Posh, Stevenage and Pompey.
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I dont think Bolton played well at all, that defeat was totally down to us being absolutely pathetic. You did the basics well and worked much harder than us even in first gear.
Its no criticism of Bolton at all, but that was all on us tonight.
 
BristolOx said:
What a shambles this season has become. Given our recent results I'd say our true position is probably about 18th - anyone above is likely to get somewhere between 1 - 3 points off us.

I think this is a rather large nail in the coffin for the dream of an Oxford born manager.

Been months and you don't see any patterns of play, structure in build up, fluidity, you can't even tell what the actual plan is. Is it just get it wide?
W must be the easiest team to defend against at the moment.
I'd argue we have 3 of the top 10 midfielders in league one. WE DON'T PLAY THROUGH MIDFIELD. They look like they've never been on a pitch together before. Even Robinson's teams, whilst they weren't overall successful, you'd know we'd probably win the battle in the middle of the park.

The frustration is unquantifiable at the moment. Might as well see it out to the end of the season, but I think we need to start planning for managerial replacements now.
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Your assessment of our style is 100% as I see it. Over 20 games for Des and we seem to have one outlet, pass it to Murphy. Our midfield 3 were dominating the ball earlier in the season, now they are spectators. We rarely press and when we do there is no structure to it. We’ve replaced intricate passing in the oppositions half with aimless possession across the back 4. The destruction of all the good things we did in the first half of the season has been frightening to be honest. Des looks tactically clueless.
 
West Oxon U’s said:
That he, McGuane , played the full 96 minutes says it all. No idea why he wasn’t hooked.

His ‘performance’ was distressingly bad. He literally couldn’t give a f**k.
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He's been like that since end of October, gone from dominating games in the preceding 2 months back to the sideways and backwards slow passing of the previous couple of seasons.

Where's Matete?
 
Just got back home to Bampton.
Even after last nights whipping, it doesn’t feel anywhere as bad as the 2-2 against Northampton .
 
I appreciate football fans notoriously overrate their own players but I don’t understand the narrative that the majority of our players are top League 1 players. How many of them could play in the Championship? I’d say two - Cam and Tyler. You could name some others who could hold their own for the odd game: Leigh, Moore, Dale maybe, but everywhere you look, the team is filled with players who have consistently shown that they are not good enough. They are not physical enough. They are not robust enough. There are so few leaders in that dressing room. I can’t wait for the summer turnover. I don’t have a list to hand but I’m not sure there’s a single player who is out of contract this summer that I would be trying to re-sign.

Which brings us to who the manager will be who will be making those signings in the summer. It’s becoming harder and harder to defend Des, particularly when you look at other coaches who are new to League 1 like the Lincoln and Barnsley coaches, who seem to have got their teams playing.

I’ve said before - I watch football to be entertained. With the exception of the Portsmouth game, the performances are dull. It is boring. There is no way I would buy a season ticket to watch that next season. The fact that only 200 fans travelled on a Tuesday night in a 3rd v 7th game suggests some are already voting with their feet.

I’m at a loss to understand what the tactics were meant to be tonight. Answers on a postcard if you have any ideas. My only guess is that we set out to defend and to counter attack at pace, which, given we have kept one clean sheet in 3 months and we were playing a team who hit goal 100 of their season against us according to the commentary, is utter madness. I understand the urge to play two up front but who is going to get those two the ball and which position do you take out to put another up front? We got destroyed in central midfield with 3 v 3 in there so going to 2 v 3 wasn’t going to work. Similarly, I don’t think we are a team that is set up to play wingbacks. And to return to my first point, the horrible truth is that the players we have are not comfortable enough on the ball to play through a press. Long and Brown routinely cough the ball up. McGuane only passes backwards.

What intrigues me are two questions that I have not heard good answers to:

1. Tactically, what was Manning doing with this team that Des isn’t? The formation seems to be the same. The players are more or less the same. There are certain things that I can see as a coach and have picked up from listening to others but I’d love to hear the big tactical differences others see.

2. Same 11 players…How can we look so good against Portsmouth and so bad tonight, 11 days later? It can’t just be that Portsmouth “let us play” and Bolton didn’t…
 
Well, this all makes disappointing reading to wake up to here in Mumbai. I’ll not comment on the game as I wasn’t there, however, having watched Mumbai City FC beat Northeast United 4-1 last night in the ISL, it doesn’t surprise me we are where we are.

The quality of football is perhaps some of the lowest I’ve seen. It’s woeful for the most part. The average salary in the league is about £55k with the top players earning around £400k and lowest on £4K per season. MOTM wins £5k with a big cardboard cheque given over at the end.

Buckingham being City Group or not, the fact of the matter is, he’s gone from a league where he probably did have players who respected him to a league where they don’t. He’s also gone from a league that makes the conference look like the Champions League. There’s very little in the way of tactics being displayed in the two games I’ve seen here and it seems Des has brought that ‘style’ to the U.K.

The management team took a punt on a ‘local lad’ no doubt to increase the match day customer vibe and it’s failing miserably.

A heavy loss was on the cards, we’ve had some terrible first half performances where the players were about to be booed off only to get a goal in the 40th or so minute.

It was embarrassing listening to the OUFC commentary team in the car back from the game last week talking about a 2-1 win at Cheltenham being a “turning point”.

The players look unhappy with each other and with then manager, the manager looks completely lost and the management team just look f@cking stupid. Big changes needed.
 
I try not to join the pitchfork Mob, but watching that tonight I could see it on the faces of the team as they lined up. They looked sheepish and just not up for it before a ball was kicked.

It was men against boys, no spirit, no aggression, no real game plan from what I could see.

Not calling for the manager to be punted, but some serious conversations need to be had amongst that group of players and the coaching staff!
 
Sheik djibouti said:
And yet the same frauds who pretended to play for us tonight will be expecting clubs to want their services in the summer.

On tonight's showing, they won't even get in the Dog and Duck 2nd team next season.

Not even their Aunt Sally team.
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He could be the dolly, he’d be good at that
 
WEYellow said:
Sat in Sandbach services refuelling for the remaining 2 hours drive home, god the things we do for our club.

Haven’t really read through what’s been said, but can’t imagine my feelings are much different to the majority. It was a disgusting performance from top to bottom, the initial setup was wrong IMO and the gaps between our midfielders was staggering, I can’t believe nothing changed after the first 15. Our full backs were way too narrow and the first goal proved it, second was an absolute omnishambles with both Leigh and Cumming making huge errors. Third goal, okay, that was unlucky, but where was the closing down? the urgency? Fourth goal, absolutely torn apart - probably the best goal we’ve conceded this season. Fifth goal, after the third you close down the edge of the box, but didn’t happen, felt like Cumming could have done better but haven’t seen it back, doubt I’ll ever bother checking. It is painfully obvious that we are STILL lacking in the positions for the last 5 or 6 seasons - a proper CDM, an authoritative CB and a right back. Matete isn’t the answer, he was never the man for any of those roles but there was ecstasy when he signed, anyone who had watched him for a sustained period would know he’s in the Mcguane mould. Panic signing. Brown is a loose cannon and unreliable against good teams. Moore needs legs beside him, not some league 1 codger who will only go downhill in his career from now. Long, the less said about him the better.

The thing that upsets me the most though is the final whistle, players stood joking with their Bolton counterparts, ambling over and barely looking apologetic. Dale looked royally fucked off but apart from that there didn’t look an ounce of hurt on the faces of the players, that ultimately is what the fans remember. Is it a mentality thing? Do we have leaders in our squad? Moore, Brannagan, Mcguane, Long, Brown, Bodin, Murphy - all part of our abysmal run last year, all part of abysmal runs in previous seasons, why does it keep happening? Why has Brannagan not left to go elsewhere? Does he believe he has it in him? We can see the ability, but would he rather stay where he has it easy? He seems to be the exception to most of the fanbase, but if anything he’s part of the problem. That’s a spine of players who look great with no expectation, but as soon as there’s a bit of pressure they crumble.

I want it to work for Des, I still think he needs time and proper support structure around him, but he simply won’t get it with these clowns in charge, and when the players give up on you it’s usually curtains. I don’t trust this board to even get another appointment right so for me he stays, but there’s so much unnecessary pressure (some self inflicted) on him to deliver a good start to next season.

Another point on the useless C***s that are slowly ripping the soul out of our club, and this is probably a hangover of last weeks fans forum, but how blindingly obvious is it that they save face as the bare minimum and do *nothing* else. It’s so reactive rather than proactive. Oh you think the communication isn’t good? Okay, don’t worry about that lads, we’ll sort it. Oh the support structure for a new manager is shambolic? Don’t worry lads, we paid a hefty release clause for Des, and gave him a brand new (injured) 400k striker who was mooted even before he got here! The assistant manager who Des wanted and had in the building decided to walk from the offer at the last minute? That was HIS personal issue, nothing to do with the fact we offered a basic contract and didn’t trust you were the right man.

I’m not angry as such, I’m just upset. I’m upset that these things keep happening to us, I’m upset these group of players aren’t good enough for what we want, I’m upset that we’ve got one of our own in charge and he hasn’t been supported enough. It shouldn’t come to this where we turn against him, but he will be the fall guy and we’ll rinse and repeat next season with a new manager, with the same core of players who have let us down so often. I’d absolutely love if Des showed a bit of fight and attitude, called people out, got the fans on his side and uses siege mentality to stabilise our season and have a bloody good go at it in the summer, with a whole new core of players who he wants. I don’t think he has it in him to do it though, I think he’s too nice and it’ll be him who’s out the door first when there’s dozens of people who should be gone before him.

It’s just upsetting.

Anyway, engine on, back down the M6. Night all
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You say you don’t trust the board, well they got Manning right. Ok, they looked to have messed this one up but nothing suggests they cannot find another Manning.
 
Mad Dog said:
Christ, imagine being THAT bad. Time to go Des!
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That’s a touch harsh. If you’re going to judge KR on those last months - when his professional life met his personal life head on - why not judge him on the previous 4 years or so ? Fans who dismiss him as some sort of crap manager, I think, are being a bit silly. There were plenty of times when we were genuinely superb to watch. He had the odd hammering - as you’d expect over 4 or 5 seasons - but I can’t recall as many as inept as last night and that includes those final, disastrous months.
 
dickwalton1964 said:
That’s a touch harsh. If you’re going to judge KR on those last months - when his professional life met his personal life head on - why not judge him on the previous 4 years or so ? Fans who dismiss him as some sort of crap manager, I think, are being a bit silly. There were plenty of times when we were genuinely superb to watch. He had the odd hammering - as you’d expect over 4 or 5 seasons - but I can’t recall as many as inept as last night and that includes those final, disastrous months.
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Yeah but he’s a c**t
 
Oxford84 said:
I dont think Bolton played well at all, that defeat was totally down to us being absolutely pathetic. You did the basics well and worked much harder than us even in first gear.
Its no criticism of Bolton at all, but that was all on us tonight.
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They ripped us a new one.

Yes, we were bloody awful, but they made that win look easy. I said last night that it felt as though they didn't have to get out of second gear, they made it look that easy.

That wasn’t a sign of a team not playing well.

We have played our fair share of poor teams and managed nothing like that in terms of performance.

Bolton looked very good last night and took full advantage of just how poor we were.
 
MC Yellow said:
They ripped us a new one.

Yes, we were bloody awful, but they made that win look easy. I said last night that it felt as though they didn't have to get out of second gear, they made it look that easy.

That wasn’t a sign of a team not playing well.

We have played our fair share of poor teams and managed nothing like that in terms of performance.

Bolton looked very good last night and took full advantage of just how poor we were.
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The proverbial men against boys.

And more disappointingly, the majority of boys who just weren't trying.
 
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