Away Match Day Thread +++ 14/12/2019 Milton Keynes Dons v OUFC L1 +++

[Marked Ox]

Haven't read previous posts but here are some of my thoughts:

We were poor. Injuries have caught up with us and we have lost the fluency/shape of our play. Also, some of those who have played most/all the games looked tired with Fosu standing out (he has become a bit greedy recently as well). This is worrying going into the Christmas period.

Good to see Cam Bran and Shandon back yesterday and at least they got some minutes in their legs.

It stood out how we missed James Henry tying defence and attack together with his playmaking and movement off the ball. And the movement off the ball was poor yesterday.

I have no complaints with the result even though they only had 1 shot on target. We weren't good enough. I think Dongs will continue to improve under their new manager as they have been getting better anyway results wise.

We have to learn to do the dark arts more and cope with others doing it to us. Fosu should have gone down when caught in the box, rather than try to stay on his feet as Kettle looked like he was going to blow his whistle for the penalty.

And that ground, it looks good but that is as far as it goes. If the designer deliberately wanted to create an atmosphere sponge then they succeeded. Any attempt to get a chant going was ruined by the noise being inconsequential which was highlighted by the distant Dongs drum going into nothingness.

I really hope IF we get a new stadium that this is given as a model not to follow. It made the Kasstad seem like having a good atmosphere. This shows building a smaller capacity with the ability to expand easily is the way to go for me.

Also, Dongs fans (however many/little were there) have little chance of creating an atmosphere when all the key moments (goals, teams coming out etc) were killed by very loud music over a godawful tannoy system.

Splitting the away fans and closing off the area behind the goal was laughable and clearly Dongs themselves don't care about atmosphere.

One thing Dongs had right was the traffic management after the game for me. Although it took a little bit to get out of the car park, I thought it was well managed and relatively quick.

Finally, unless it is a vital game, I won't be going back to that stadium.

 

[Mellowyellow]

A mention for the goalkeeper. He has been very assured. Nothing he could have done about the goal, but very assured, and he has good distribution whilst talking a lot to the back four.

 

[NC2U]

You are all over this all of a sudden ...funny that

Bet it’s been torture for this person seeing us play well for the last 3 months or so. One bad game and the sniping starts again. They may follow Oxford United, but they certainly don’t support them!

 

[RyanioBirdio]

As soon as they scored we suddenly remembered how to attack, so seemingly we decided the best way to try to beat a poor MK side was to just sit in and try to nick something later in the game, although the idea of scoring looked quite fanciful. From the first whistle we strolled and trotted around, didn’t chase, harry or press, and looked totally flat. Nobody can blame fitness or fatigue when it was like that from minute one. We looked totally not arsed, and given Robinson didn’t go mad on the sidelines, and we didn’t come out for the second half looking like we’d had a rocket, presumably this was all part of some sort of plan. Talk on the radio afterwards of “having a plan to stifle them” - sorry, what? We looked to counter THEM? THAT pretty shoddy looking side? Bloody hell. That’s like asking a heavyweight to take their time and soak up the jab from a middleweight. Just punch him FFS. If you catch them even half cleanly they’re in trouble. To not even make their goalkeeper make a save the entire match, and to not even look like we fancied trying to have the smallest go until they scored after an hour, was poor. Put round pegs in round holes (unlike last week) and play your own way (unlike this week). You’ll always lose games and you’ll always have the odd off day, but the last two matches have just been... weird. I hope we aren’t about to have another period of weird overthinking.

Christmas should be interesting. Brannagan and Baptiste are starting to make their way back and apparently so is Woodburn, so at least the midfield will hopefully start to get some depth back, and with four games in something like 11 days it always gives you a really good chance to get back on track quickly. If we can just do what we’ve been doing and not get bogged down in trying to be too clever, or start trying to play chess when it isn’t needed, it should still be fine. Just play our own game.

 

[MiddleBartonYellow]

Probably shows how important Henry is to the team.

 

[christenedinjericho]

Haven't read previous posts but here are some of my thoughts:

We were poor. Injuries have caught up with us and we have lost the fluency/shape of our play. Also, some of those who have played most/all the games looked tired with Fosu standing out (he has become a bit greedy recently as well). This is worrying going into the Christmas period.

Good to see Cam Bran and Shandon back yesterday and at least they got some minutes in their legs.

It stood out how we missed James Henry tieing defence and attack together with his playmaking and movement off the ball. And the movement off the ball was poor yesterday.

I have no complaints with the result even though they only had 1 shot on target. We weren't good enough. I think Dongs will continue to improve under their new manager as they have been getting better anyway results wise.

We have to learn to do the dark arts more and cope with others doing it to us. Fosu should have gone down when caught in the box, rather than try to stay on his feet as Kettle looked like he was going to blow his whistle for the penalty.

And that ground, it looks good but that is as far as it goes. If the designer deliberately wanted to create an atmosphere sponge then they succeeded. Any attempt to get a chant going was ruined by the noise being inconsequential which was highlighted by the distant Dongs drum going into nothingness.

I really hope IF we get a new stadium that this is given as a model not to follow. It made the Kasstad seem like having a good atmosphere. This shows building a smaller capacity with the ability to expand easily is the way to go for me.

Also, Dongs fans (however many/little were there) have little chance of creating an atmosphere when all the key moments (goals, teams coming out etc) were killed by very loud music over a godawful tannoy system.

Splitting the away fans and closing off the area behind the goal was laughable and clearly Dongs themselves don't care about atmosphere.

One thing Dongs had right was the traffic management after the game for me. Although it took a little bit to get out of the car park, I thought it was well managed and relatively quick.

Finally, unless it is a vital game, I won't be going back to that stadium.

Haven't read previous posts but here are some of my thoughts:

We were poor. Injuries have caught up with us and we have lost the fluency/shape of our play. Also, some of those who have played most/all the games looked tired with Fosu standing out (he has become a bit greedy recently as well). This is worrying going into the Christmas period.

Good to see Cam Bran and Shandon back yesterday and at least they got some minutes in their legs.

It stood out how we missed James Henry tieing defence and attack together with his playmaking and movement off the ball. And the movement off the ball was poor yesterday.

I have no complaints with the result even though they only had 1 shot on target. We weren't good enough. I think Dongs will continue to improve under their new manager as they have been getting better anyway results wise.

We have to learn to do the dark arts more and cope with others doing it to us. Fosu should have gone down when caught in the box, rather than try to stay on his feet as Kettle looked like he was going to blow his whistle for the penalty.

And that ground, it looks good but that is as far as it goes. If the designer deliberately wanted to create an atmosphere sponge then they succeeded. Any attempt to get a chant going was ruined by the noise being inconsequential which was highlighted by the distant Dongs drum going into nothingness.

I really hope IF we get a new stadium that this is given as a model not to follow. It made the Kasstad seem like having a good atmosphere. This shows building a smaller capacity with the ability to expand easily is the way to go for me.

Also, Dongs fans (however many/little were there) have little chance of creating an atmosphere when all the key moments (goals, teams coming out etc) were killed by very loud music over a godawful tannoy system.

Splitting the away fans and closing off the area behind the goal was laughable and clearly Dongs themselves don't care about atmosphere.

One thing Dongs had right was the traffic management after the game for me. Although it took a little bit to get out of the car park, I thought it was well managed and relatively quick.

Finally, unless it is a vital game, I won't be going back to that stadium.

Agree with most of your points especially the dark arts side. Most winning sides employ coaches and players that can engineer this side of the game into the club's persona and this doesn't have to be at the cost of the entertainment served. I was asked at several clubs in my amateur days to 'look' after their main playmaker or their mouth in short trousers and I did it without being in least dirty or overly aggressive. I did most by being five it six steps ahead of their manager's instructions. It can be done easily when you get in the ears of one or two w*nkers. However, yesterday we certainly weren't at the races and to be honest I found KR's body language a little subdued and for reasons I don't know why. I hope we can fix this by whacking the chair covers with a big stick next weekend.

I understand also that many fans who went yesterday will be chunting about this is not the ground we want to replicate but when building a ground from scratch I've always said you build from intelligence and data that has been sourced thoroughly. Oxfordshire is growing pretty rapidly and like MK most of their support is still second hand at the moment with a lot of over 50's people still having a original team they adopted at birth still in their blood and it's a little hard to take MK in properly as their club although their children will probably dabble in supporting MK at successful times with the club filling this bowl easily when the big clubs come to town. In 10/15 years time their average attendance will increase as children become dad's and mum's and they adopt MK as their first club however hard to taste that is for many people out there that still hate this franchise of a club. So with this in mind any future ground we build must be able to cope from day one -none of this we will increase the capacity at a later expensive cost. Data and intelligence should dictate our future capacity and I'm sure a ground built for the future at no more than 25k first time around would be suffice and adequate to sort any growth from our original fanbase and to include new 'outsiders' coming in to reside in this great county of ours.

Fwiw my idea on the ground construction would be to include a smaller version (obvious I know) of Tottenham's wall at one end of the ground for our supporters to create an atmosphere and the rest of the ground to resemble perhaps a Rotherham type of stadium.

Even though I'm an ol' geezer and probably won't get to have loads of years in any future ground I am not selfish as I want to go out one day knowing my club has a ground it has deserved for years since leaving our old original home of the Manor.

Coyy's

 

[greatunclekip]

Bet it’s been torture for this person seeing us play well for the last 3 months or so. One bad game and the sniping starts again. They may follow Oxford United, but they certainly don’t support them!

To be fair, ive been very complimentary and optimistic every week when we have been playing well.

Yesterday we were utter dog chod and i called it out as such.

 

[Manorlounger]

As soon as they scored we suddenly remembered how to attack, so seemingly we decided the best way to try to beat a poor MK side was to just sit in and try to nick something later in the game, although the idea of scoring looked quite fanciful. From the first whistle we strolled and trotted around, didn’t chase, harry or press, and looked totally flat. Nobody can blame fitness or fatigue when it was like that from minute one. We looked totally not arsed, and given Robinson didn’t go mad on the sidelines, and we didn’t come out for the second half looking like we’d had a rocket, presumably this was all part of some sort of plan. Talk on the radio afterwards of “having a plan to stifle them” - sorry, what? We looked to counter THEM? THAT pretty shoddy looking side? Bloody hell. That’s like asking a heavyweight to take their time and soak up the jab from a middleweight. Just punch him FFS. If you catch them even half cleanly they’re in trouble. To not even make their goalkeeper make a save the entire match, and to not even look like we fancied trying to have the smallest go until they scored after an hour, was poor. Put round pegs in round holes (unlike last week) and play your own way (unlike this week). You’ll always lose games and you’ll always have the odd off day, but the last two matches have just been... weird. I hope we aren’t about to have another period of weird overthinking.

Christmas should be interesting. Brannagan and Baptiste are starting to make their way back and apparently so is Woodburn, so at least the midfield will hopefully start to get some depth back, and with four games in something like 11 days it always gives you a really good chance to get back on track quickly. If we can just do what we’ve been doing and not get bogged down in trying to be too clever, or start trying to play chess when it isn’t needed, it should still be fine. Just play our own game.

Something I noticed in the warm up pre-match, a lot of the squad looked uninterested and approached each movement in a half hearted manner (sadly, Rob Hall looked particularly off) One noticeable exception being Brannagan who really went at it. Apparently he was seen doing the same in training the day before. No doubt, keen to get back playing. May be nothing in my observation but, if this lack of motivation is reflected in match performance, we have an issue.
Mackie, once he came on, was his usual buzzing self and always vocal at any set piece but, he can't be there all the time. Who, amongst the regular starters, is the one to fire up the team?

 

[Yellowlab]

To be fair, ive been very complimentary and optimistic every week when we have been playing well.

Yesterday we were utter dog chod and i called it out as such.

You really don’t get it do you? A supporter does just that. When things aren’t going right they get behind and encourage, they don’t just slag off and put the boot in at the earliest opportunity.

Do you think the players don’t know when they haven’t put a decent performance in? They really don’t need you pointing out the obvious in a rude and disrespectful way.

One day when you’re a bit older you’ll hopefully come to realise that this is a really good era, and, with luck maybe a great one.

We are a third division team, who, all things considered are doing very well. If that’s really not acceptable to you why not follow someone like Liverpool?

Constructive criticism is one thing but show some respect for our team.

 

[bazzer9461]

Sorry, misjudged MK'idiosism (I know that is not a word but hey ho, you know what I mean!) here. So official attendance 10,000, Oxford 2,800 surely home fans in ground was no more than 3,200. Total 6,000. Missing people 4,000, just bizarre.

Nothing new there

 

[Foley]

I agree with those who have said how awful the stadium is for atmosphere and how IF we were to have a new stadium , we need to steer clear of an MK style stadium.
The not allowing supporters to go behind the goal is ridiculous. When there is a crowd of what 7000 or so in a ground that can fit in 30,000 why have a situation where supporters cant find a seat? The whole club strategy made it very difficult for the stewards and supporters- madness.
In the game we were poor and didnt deserve to win. But whether we had won or lost, the MK organisation and tactical was awful. I have been to the 3 games at MK but really wonder whether I will bother next time.

 

[WuTang]

Not sure if it's been mentioned yet, but Yellow Submarine being sang loud and proud at the start of the game was superb, and incredibly loud! Likewise the applause and songs for Jim in the 79th minute

 

[Mellowyellow]

Something I noticed in the warm up pre-match, a lot of the squad looked uninterested and approached each movement in a half hearted manner (sadly, Rob Hall looked particularly off) One noticeable exception being Brannagan who really went at it. Apparently he was seen doing the same in training the day before. No doubt, keen to get back playing. May be nothing in my observation but, if this lack of motivation is reflected in match performance, we have an issue.
Mackie, once he came on, was his usual buzzing self and always vocal at any set piece but, he can't be there all the time. Who, amongst the regular starters, is the one to fire up the team?

Mous speaks very well on the radio, maybe he should be more vocal on the field?

 

[Manorlounger]

Mous speaks very well on the radio, maybe he should be more vocal on the field?

Agree with that. I suspect that Mackie's approach is slightly more "agricultural" in tone!
However, Mous always comes across as very insightful and measured in tone. He will make a good manager one day. Good idea to keep him around the club even when the time comes that he does not make the starting line up.

 

[OUFCGav]

P45 Monday morning then if that’s true...

nope - the supervisors know about him, according to one "he's a t**t", just shrugged when I asked whether anything would be done about him. The guy involved had a small kid with him by the look of it, and went off - not sure elsewhere or out of the ground.

 

[OX11yellow]

One good thing from MK Dons was the pre-match tannoy message about Jim Smith. It was just a RIP but not many clubs do that for the away club.

 

[Oufcad30]

One good thing from MK Dons was the pre-match tannoy message about Jim Smith. It was just a RIP but not many clubs do that for the away club.

Seems like the PA announcer for MK is Trevor Marshall who works for Jack FM, if you're on Facebook then the photographer Darrell Fisher tagged him in a post today

 

[jambon46]

Mous speaks very well on the radio, maybe he should be more vocal on the field?

He is and more importantly he is telling the officials how it is, which a lot don't understand how important this is, although with Kettle he might as well not bothered!

 

[Followtheox1]

Mous speaks very well on the radio, maybe he should be more vocal on the field?

In my view leaders come in different shapes and sizes. If he is not the vocal sort by now I'm not sure he could change now. It's a fine line. In all my years playing football some people who were vocal just pissed the other players off while others you listened too.

 

[Followtheox1]

He is and more importantly he is telling the officials how it is, which a lot don't understand how important this is, although with Kettle he might as well not bothered!

He is not massively vocal in that you don't tend hear him bellowing all over the place but you are right he seems good with the one to one conversations on the pitch including with the officials. He doesn't appear to pick up cards for dissent too much so is obviously approaching them in the right way.