After a very long day and some much-needed sleep, I woke up this morning feeling as buoyant as I did on the drive home.
It was immensely frustrating not to win. I can’t help but feel we’ll never gets better chance to win at the Stadium Of Light, but that pales into insignificance when you consider the HUGE strides we’ve made since getting deservedly smashed off the park at Barnsley and Portsmouth. I’m generally always proud to be an Oxford fan, but how good did it feel walking away yesterday surrounded by Mackems who, for the most part were equally split between slagging the ref (who wasn’t great) and praising our performance?
We were bossing it at 11-vs-11, and 3-0 wouldn’t have been flattering to us at half time. The second half was more even, and it was frustrating to concede - but what I’m actually most pleased about yesterday is that with a young, unfit and tiring team we retained our composure in the heat of battle with 30,000 home fans screaming at the ref constantly - and in the last 20 we got our sh*t together, passed them off the pitch again and could’ve nicked a winner.
I thought their red card was harsh, but the ref was generally poor all game. Once he’d made an error in the red card (I thought it was cynical, but not dangerous and not denying a goal scoring opportunity - so a yellow for me) he spent the whole game trying to correct it. Maguire should’ve gone multiple times over, but the ref bottled it. He made countless blatant home team decisions to keep the crowd off his back. Having incorrectly not sent Mags off, he then also couldn’t send Baptiste off (when he should have). Shandon’s first yellow came seconds before FAILED to book a Sunderland player for a carbon copy foul on Browne. All in all, he was dire for both teams. Sunderland can act hard done by - but they should’ve been down to 10 by half time anyway (Maguire) and having failed to send Mags off he then couldn’t send Baptiste off in the second.
Holmes and Mackie were very good in the first half before tiring. Holmes’ influence as an organiser and defensive presence (he made a few immense interceptions and tackles too) was greatly missed. And I thought Mackie’s first half was a step up in both work rate and tactical awareness from Obika and Smith.
‘Best player in the league’ Browne gave them a torrid afternoon. Their crowd was on his back, but from where I was sat (admittedly us away fans were basically sat in the f*cking sky) he was getting kicked to pieces.
The running Norman and Ruffs got through at full back was immense. The difference between those two and McMahon & Garbutt’s slow, light-weight and laboured performances at Barnsley & Pompy is massive.
And a final closing word for Baptiste. What a massive performance from that kid. Incredibly impressive. He lost the ball a few times - but he lost it being brave, being progressive and (as others have said) trying to go FORWARD and make things happen. He gave Cattermole no rest all afternoon. To produce that performance in that kind of hostile environment is utterly remarkable. His progress in just a couple of months is quite stunning. What a prospect. Fingers crossed he stays grounded, knuckles down and goes the way of Callum O’Dowda rather than (sadly) James Roberts...