Championship 14/03/2026 - MDT: Oxford United v Charlton Athletic

[SteMerritt]

 

[Billyox]

No Billy, I'm always attack attack attack.. .if you don't attack you don't score. It's to risky a game to be defensive..

So we attack leave us vulnerable at the and concede an equaliser so we end the week with 2 points instead of 4 thats why your not a manager

 

[ouande]

Yeah bugging me too. Doing a prediction/hopeful list of outcomes from our remaining games and got us down to W3, D2, L3

Would be a decent return. BUT.....

Based on season to date, 48.42 points does it

 

[Toe knee]

So we attack leave us vulnerable at the and concede an equaliser so we end the week with 2 points instead of 4 thats why your not a manager

If I was manger we'd of been promoted by now

 

[Littlemore Local]

Meh. A bit of a rollercoaster. Took the roof off when we got the penalty. Gutted when we conceded one.

Generally did ok against very physical opposition. They were the better team in the first half. We were better second half. A draw is probably fair. Both sets of supporters made themselves heard. Referee was awful.

Emakhu looked fragile early on but had some good moments later. Happy to see Shemmy return. The subs later on and/or whatever change of shape came with them weakened us (again). The last ten minutes was terrifying. But the equaliser came from the referee rather than from the opposition.

Other results haven't helped but we're still in the mix.

 

[Eaststanding]

Sorry not read all the pages but :

1. If the referee sets the bar very high for free kicks then adapt, don’t moan about it heels change. He has that reputation already he’s not going to kindly oblige a character shift

2. How does our nice young lad on the left wing not get hauled at half time? For confidence ? He was shot already and 20 minutes more just made it worse. But more importantly rectifying his mistakes cost our team a lot of energy

3. Why no high press today ? We let Charlton play out from the back so easily and they’re clearly not a competent ball playing defence. Very disappointing after recent weeks successes with that tactic

4. Why were the crowd so flat? Sounded amazing midweek but today it was strangely quiet especially with 15-20 to go and a lead. Stan mills, lanks, Donley and cam were putting in such a massive shift and needed the 12th man

Disappointing twist today. At one point we were three points clear of relegation now back in it with the small margins. Hey ho we go again and there is hope

Ps Stan mills is a revelation and the key to us staying up

A question; were you at the game today?
I thought not, because you have finally convinced me that if someone wasn’t at the game they are entitled to zero opinion on the noise from the crowd.
Absolutely clueless.
Apart from a period in the drab first half , the crowd were up for it, and credit to the Yellow Division for their efforts.

 

[Mr Perfect]

Swindon 1 MKD 2 full time

Totally irrelevant to this thread.

 

[HillBilly]

Based on season to date, 48.42 points does it

No way we'll ever reach that total. It's all over.

 

[Toe knee]

A question; were you at the game today?
I thought not, because you have finally convinced me that if someone wasn’t at the game they are entitled to zero opinion on the noise from the crowd.
Absolutely clueless.
Apart from a period in the drab first half , the crowd were up for it, and credit to the Yellow Division for their efforts.

Don't think he goes to any matches, but always got an opinion. Yes clueless...

 

[werthersoriginal]

Meh. A bit of a rollercoaster. Took the roof off when we got the penalty. Gutted when we conceded one.

Generally did ok against very physical opposition. They were the better team in the first half. We were better second half. A draw is probably fair. Both sets of supporters made themselves heard. Referee was awful.

Emakhu looked fragile early on but had some good moments later. Happy to see Shemmy return. The subs later on and/or whatever change of shape came with them weakened us (again). The last ten minutes was terrifying. But the equaliser came from the referee rather than from the opposition.

Other results haven't helped but we're still in the mix.

We’d be more in the mix if Hull and Millwall hadn’t had players sent off! Gah!! Referees

 

[BicesterU]

I said that Billy, and we were lucky that similar didn’t happen as per today e.g. when Cumming went juggling, but the most frustrating thing is, we didn’t need to do it on both occasions.

Do you think Blackburn and Charlton just wouldn't have bothered attacking us if we hadn't make those changes? I'm genuinely intrigued to understand what you're saying.

 

[PottersRightBoot]

I thought our tactics in last 10 were fine. How many chances did Charlton actually have, all game?

You can’t legislate for a howler like Brown’s though . I’m not digging into him; he’s been excellent since Christmas.

Poor game but we had loads of spirit and guts. I can see why they’re going to survive but wouldn’t want to watch Charlton every week. What a slog it is. And that’s just their posturing lunatic of a manager.

Long, Brannagan, Currie again very very good.

Emakhu disastrous in first half. Ball watching, never picking up runners , never finding space, body language dreadful. He picked up slightly after break. We are not going to survive with passengers. There has to be instant improvement from him. Otherwise join Siriki in the Play Station break out zone at the training ground.

Other results today just show unpredictability of this league.( Like our 10 points from last 4.) Have a real fighting chance now although the more I look at it the tougher our run in gets . COYY.

 

[Orkney Islands Yellow]

Hiw is Lankshear

theres shirt pulls, and then there is what Brown did.

What was he thinking?! Brainless.

 

[Blox21]

A few posters are very wise after the event , all I know is a couple of weeks ago we were certs to go down now we have a chance

 

[Barbadosyellow]

I was disappointed not to see Jin Woo brought on instead of Shemmy. I'm starting to worry that the club haven't got what they thought they were paying for.

 

[Joey]

Plenty of blame to go round today unfortunately. It was an utterly ridiculous decision from Brown who I thought struggled a bit second half after a very good first, several times he failed to get balls properly clear when not under much pressure which kept us under the cosh.

Bloomfield has to take a good chunk of the blame. We got away with it against Blackburn but got worse after taking off any attacking threat and it happened again today. It's not hindsight either, I thought at the time it was too negative and I doubt I was alone in that. It would have been very brave but if have been tempted to bring McDonnell on for Donley and use him like we did Matos at times, when we left Prelec on his own up there we couldn't put any pressure on their defence and couldn't get out. A direct team like Charlton will be adept at winning either first or second contact from long balls, I'd rather have seen us try and cut that off at source as opposed to let them have it and hope. He's not that good on the ball so playing him further back in a two will cause problems, there was a moment when we were on the attack with Brannagan, he looked up as if expecting his midfield partner to be there and available but McDonnell was 20 yards behind play, just in front of the defence. Almost every change gave away control and invited pressure today, I was critical of Prelec Wednesday but I thought he was on a bit of a hiding to nothing today.

Cumming is a very good keeper but there is an issue with him not commanding his box. In the first half both Helik and Brown took control and launched balls out for throws that should have been his, he needs to be louder and more aggressive. I'm not blaming him for the penalty but it probably doesn't help if the defence feels obliged to deal with everything that comes because they don't know if the keeper will.

I'm not sure what Jin Woo has done because every time I've seen him he's done something, it's a struggle to see how he could have done less than Emakhu today who looked completely bereft of confidence. There was a moment in the first half when he could have gone through one on one but he seemed to not want it, he let the defender overtake and clear it without even touching him, it was pretty pathetic. Minutes later he had a chance to get us up the pitch with no one within 20 yards but panicked and slashed it out of play first time as if it was a hot potato. To his credit he improved second half but we can't afford passengers and that's what he was.

The positives were Long, who I thought was very good throughout, along with Helik at the back. Currie struggled but improved, Konak was very good again and I thought I was a decent cameo from Shemmy who's pace is always a useful outlet. Lankshear was excellent, although probably should have done better when put through. It's still a point, it feels like a guy punch because of how and when it came about plus West Brom and Blackburn winning but we're right in the fight still and are good enough to compete with anyone on our day. Blackburn winning at Millwall while Leicester lose at home to a QPR team who have been terrible is a perfect example of how many twists there are going to be still, we just need to worry about ourselves, there's no one we should be writing off games against.

 

[QR]

My head at the moment....

- we gave that away, what was Brown doing?
- how was that a foul given, it happens at every set piece and corner and is never given?
-10 points our of 12 is meaningless if we're still in a relegation spot.
- with three wins and a draw we're the in-form team going into the most important sequence of games of the season.
- we got ourselves in this dire situation in the first place
- it's still in our own hands and we still have with four games at homes.
- why was Konak subbed? Neat, tidy, something we've been missing.
- was trying to hold on really the best tactic today? Charlton seemed to have run out of ideas.
- I don't think we'll ever get out of the bottom three.
- I'm sure we can still make it.

 

[Toe knee]

I can't believe we've actually bought Emakuh...
Not cheap either....mm

 

[Village-Yellow]

4. Why were the crowd so flat? Sounded amazing midweek but today it was strangely quiet especially with 15-20 to go and a lead. Stan mills, lanks, Donley and cam were putting in such a massive shift and needed the 12th man

Have a stern word with yourself.

We were bang at it and behind the boys all the way.

Needed a 12th man….my a**e.

 

[Golden Dr Otto]

A question; were you at the game today?
I thought not, because you have finally convinced me that if someone wasn’t at the game they are entitled to zero opinion on the noise from the crowd.
Absolutely clueless.
Apart from a period in the drab first half , the crowd were up for it, and credit to the Yellow Division for their efforts.

Apologies wasn’t trying to get a big reaction. Not sure you needed to respond like that though.

I watched the live stream just as I did for the Blackburn game where the noise was really good and came across as such. Today it did not except for the last 5 minutes.

Maybe you’ll have to speak to Rosie and Jerome (whom I’m assuming were inside the stadium) who also commented consistently about how quiet and flat the crowd was.

So maybe those in the stadium only hear the noise around them, are led by the emotions of the event, and I should be increasingly convinced that those in the stadium should be allowed zero opinion ?

 

[Village-Yellow]

-10 points our of 12 is meaningless if we're still in a relegation spot.

I’ll respectfully disagree.

Adding 10 points to our tally in the past 4 games is far from meaningless.

 

[dickwalton1964]

I thought our tactics in last 10 were fine. How many chances did Charlton actually have, all game?

You can’t legislate for a howler like Brown’s though . I’m not digging into him; he’s been excellent since Christmas.

Poor game but we had loads of spirit and guts. I can see why they’re going to survive but wouldn’t want to watch Charlton every week. What a slog it is. And that’s just their posturing lunatic of a manager.

Long, Brannagan, Currie again very very good.

Emakhu disastrous in first half. Ball watching, never picking up runners , never finding space, body language dreadful. He picked up slightly after break. We are not going to survive with passengers. There has to be instant improvement from him. Otherwise join Siriki in the Play Station break out zone at the training ground.

Other results today just show unpredictability of this league.( Like our 10 points from last 4.) Have a real fighting chance now although the more I look at it the tougher our run in gets . COYY.

The tactics in last 10-15 were all wrong in my opinion. There were far too many times when we had the ball around the edge of our box and were literally booting it into no man’s land, only to be picked up by Charlton to start another wave of attacks. If you continue to concede possession so easily then eventually the opposition- however ordinary they might be - are going to create at the very least a decent half chance. The first half hour was terrible from us - no cohesion, no intensity and a real lack of edge to our game. We predictably got better kicking towards the fans in the second half and had we had the bravery to stick to that then we win this game relatively comfortably.

 

[TailsWeWin]

A few posters are very wise after the event , all I know is a couple of weeks ago we were certs to go down now we have a chance

But it remains an extremely slim one. Teams around us are picking up points and even 10 points from 4 games has still left us in a relegation spot. And I don’t think we can expect much from a trip to the division’s form team next week.
Great to see a big improvement …. but it’s too little too late.

 

[Byrne Baby Byrne]

theres shirt pulls, and then there is what Brown did.

Why would a defender pull a shirt in the box? It’s a false economy .
I have no idea why footballers do it. Espcially when there’s VAR

 

[Foxy]

Big opportunity for 3 points lost today. If you want or need to defend the lead in the last 15 minutes, then bring on Makasso.

 

[Eric Blair]

Sorry not read all the pages but :

1. If the referee sets the bar very high for free kicks then adapt, don’t moan about it heels change. He has that reputation already he’s not going to kindly oblige a character shift

2. How does our nice young lad on the left wing not get hauled at half time? For confidence ? He was shot already and 20 minutes more just made it worse. But more importantly rectifying his mistakes cost our team a lot of energy

3. Why no high press today ? We let Charlton play out from the back so easily and they’re clearly not a competent ball playing defence. Very disappointing after recent weeks successes with that tactic

4. Why were the crowd so flat? Sounded amazing midweek but today it was strangely quiet especially with 15-20 to go and a lead. Stan mills, lanks, Donley and cam were putting in such a massive shift and needed the 12th man

Disappointing twist today. At one point we were three points clear of relegation now back in it with the small margins. Hey ho we go again and there is hope

Ps Stan mills is a revelation and the key to us staying up

Your third point is very well made

 

[Barbadosyellow]

But it remains an extremely slim one. Teams around us are picking up points and even 10 points from 4 games has still left us in a relegation spot. And I don’t think we can expect much from a trip to the division’s form team next week.
Great to see a big improvement …. but it’s too little too late.

I think you're being too pessimistic. We've now caught up with the pack after a brilliant 3 weeks and are ahead of all our rivals in the form table over the last 5 games. Over 10 games only Blackburn are better than us. We need to support the team to the end and believe it can be done.

 

[uptheus]

Do you think Blackburn and Charlton just wouldn't have bothered attacking us if we hadn't make those changes? I'm genuinely intrigued to understand what you're saying.

No, of course they will still want to attack, but rather than it being one way it means they have to worry about us too, thus meaning that they have to keep players back and not being permanently camped in our half etc.

Some believe the best form of defence is to attack.

It makes the decision to do this (go on the defensive) more weird, especially when we’ve put these teams under pressure/seemingly in control to then turn this into backs against the wall approach which I believe is riskier.

 

[Foley]

I’ll respectfully disagree.

Adding 10 points to our tally in the past 4 games is far from meaningless.

Exactly.
Bizarre to suggest 10 points doesn't massively help in trying to stay up

 

[Eaststanding]

Apologies wasn’t trying to get a big reaction. Not sure you needed to respond like that though.

I watched the live stream just as I did for the Blackburn game where the noise was really good and came across as such. Today it did not except for the last 5 minutes.

Maybe you’ll have to speak to Rosie and Jerome (whom I’m assuming were inside the stadium) who also commented consistently about how quiet and flat the crowd was.

So maybe those in the stadium only hear the noise around them, are led by the emotions of the event, and I should be increasingly convinced that those in the stadium should be allowed zero opinion ?

It’s an argument that I’m sick of hearing from people watching on tv.
Unless you’re there you cannot possibly appreciate the efforts from all parts of the ground to keep the noise going. I said it was flat for a while first half, that happens in any ground in any league because 90+ minutes of constant vocal support just doesn’t happen, but for the rest of the game I was proud of the variety of songs in support of individual players and the team.
Flat it wasn’t.

 

[Bretch Hill]

But it remains an extremely slim one. Teams around us are picking up points and even 10 points from 4 games has still left us in a relegation spot. And I don’t think we can expect much from a trip to the division’s form team next week.
Great to see a big improvement …. but it’s too little too late.

But it isn’t though is it we still have a chance to stay in this league thanks to the manager the team and us the fans all putting a shift in when required. Again ten points from the last twelve. A few weeks ago that seemed impossible now it’s fact.its not to late that’s also a fact. Compare today’s Bloomfield Charlton game to the last time we played them when Rowett was in charge.