Home Match Day Thread +++ 22/09/18 OUFC v Walsall Match Day Thread +++

[Mutu]

Today's abysmal performance has made up my mind. Robinson is not the right person to continue as manager.

 

[battman]

I've seen nothing whatsoever that gives me any hope of not being trounced in midweek. With the Swansea and Newcastle games we went into them with belief, but there's none of that at the club at the moment.

We are now 9 games in to the league campaign, and we had an initial reaction to our poor start to the season, but have slumped back down yet again. At the fan's forum it felt like Tiger wanted KR here for the long-term, but week-on-week I find that becomes less and less likely. You can blame referees and unlucky injuries all you want, but I'm not sure that excuses 1 win in 9 games.

KR has to pull it out of the bag in the next couple of weeks, because if he doesn't, then we'll be 1/4 of the way through the season in a pretty perilous position. If he can't turn it around, he should go.

 

[Upthecowboys]

Only seen 3 games this season, so may be wrong but..

KR seems quite stuck to 1 formation. We seem too easy to play around, don’t seem compact enough in the right areas. We look like a bit of a soft touch.

The frustration is we do seem to have at least 3 outstanding attacking options - Babtiste, Browne and Whyte. We need to find a way of being solid and giving these 3 a platform to perform.

 

[yellowbow]

After the initial positivity of the fans forum this morning, one thing that came out of it which feels quite ominous at this moment in time is how much Tiger is leaning on KR. He reiterated several times that he thought Robinson is working hard and doing a good job. I don’t think Robinson going anywhere is on the agenda no matter how bad the results get.

 

[OxfordBoy]

After the initial positivity of the fans forum this morning, one thing that came out of it which feels quite ominous at this moment in time is how much Tiger is leaning on KR. He reiterated several times that he thought Robinson is working hard and doing a good job. I don’t think Robinson going anywhere is on the agenda no matter how bad the results get.

In a way its good to see a foreign owner not be trigger happy
On the other hand sack him Tiger ffs

 

[ScottishYellow]

If Appleton is still available what’s the harm in getting him. Robinson’s not been getting the results we crave, get App’s in!

 

[Leysboy]

Well KR needs to learn how to win tactically. He can’t keep playing 4231. It doesn’t always work! You need to be flexible as a manager, and he isn’t!

 

[Gary Baldi]

Today was a funny game. If we are to persist with Smith up top on his own, we have to play to his strengths. He makes lots of runs that turn into nothing because the ball is never played to him and passed to death behind him. At times, I think Baptiste looks a bit light in midfield and drifts from games - goes with a young player learning his trade.

I thought the Ref had a decent 80 mins or so, and then completely lost the plot. Not sure how we contrived a foul by Dickie at the end when he was clearly being fouled. But then again, he did contrive a lot in the last 10 that boggles the mind a bit. You can see they are near the top by how the little flick of a leg and the ball runs into space, when we do it, it goes to their player.

Results need to start changing now though. The big boy pants need to come on - in terms for formation/organisation and accountability on and off the pitch. If we go back to the diamond from last season, let's do it.

 

[Teddydee1980]

So disappointed in Smith today. Showed his age and inexperience. To be fair to Walsall, they actually reminded me of us under MApp. Sensible defending, lightning on the break. One of the better teams we've come up against, fair play to them. As for us... Hard to figure out how to fix the problems. Hanson equally poor today. Too Slow in the pass. Back to some odd tactics too, the back post crossing from Garbutt, instead of the faster flatter crosses we can get on... Then the laughable 'pick it up' free kick. Just stop it. Everyone else... Enough possession, some hard work, some good vision... It's just not enough. I don't think it's one problem, its a frickin load of problems... People say Robbo is an excuse maker... To be fair to the guy, its all going against us at the mo. My one chink of hope left is, if it can all go against us this much, it can eventually go for us... Eventually.

 

[Peterdev]

My Charlton supporting friend said of Robinson he sticks to one formation, and that looks to be the problem.
It won’t be cheap to sack him and I don’t know if we should. For now we have to stick but for how much longer I wonder.
Four home losses doesn’t augur well for the season.
So much for a season with play offs looming.
Looking very much like Peterborough, Sunderland, Portsmouth and Charlton heading north.
Surprised Bradford City are down the bottom thoug

 

[Sarge]

4.5 hr drive straight from working & just made kick off... wintnessed (yet) a(nother ) poor and mistake littered performance and also a set up that simply doesnt work with this squad of players. ..4.5 hr drive back to work after. .. it's not ideal, far from it in fact...yet OUFC are the team I support, despite the current problems on and off field. Will this squad of players turn round the thus far poor season, who knows?, I don't. Will I keep coming to support my team? Of course

 

[ttg17]

Today was a funny game. If we are to persist with Smith up top on his own, we have to play to his strengths. He makes lots of runs that turn into nothing because the ball is never played to him and passed to death behind him. At times, I think Baptiste looks a bit light in midfield and drifts from games - goes with a young player learning his trade.

I thought the Ref had a decent 80 mins or so, and then completely lost the plot. Not sure how we contrived a foul by Dickie at the end when he was clearly being fouled. But then again, he did contrive a lot in the last 10 that boggles the mind a bit. You can see they are near the top by how the little flick of a leg and the ball runs into space, when we do it, it goes to their player.

Results need to start changing now though. The big boy pants need to come on - in terms for formation/organisation and accountability on and off the pitch. If we go back to the diamond from last season, let's do it.

Came here to say this - I was as angry as anyone about the 'offside' goal, but if the player was in fact being played on by Norman, then fair play to the lino. Similarly, if that WAS a foul/dive by Dickie at the end, then that's a great decision. Will need to see it again. And he was generally pretty consistent and on top of things. Their 29 was pretty clever in stopping us taking quick free kicks, as annoying as it was. But he did just lose control of the game by the end. That said, I don't know why our players were delaying play in stoppage time by continuing to berate him and the lino about a decision that went against us. Time and a place! Which incidentally is another thing that annoys me - we KEEP giving avoidable, niggly fouls away when chasing a game late on, which teams just use to kill the game and run down the clock. Does my head in.

Other than that though, I'm going to go against the grain and say I really don't think we were that bad. The first 15 minutes of that second half were the best I've seen us play this season - purposeful, snapping into tackles, good going forward (not to mention some great anti-kassab noise from the fans). We got ourselves into some good positions and deserved a draw. Irritating that they scored from two glaring individual errors, but that's the vein we're in. I also think our deficiencies at CM are being overlooked. We badly miss a player like Lunny. When we actually spread the ball wide quickly today, as happened maybe 3 times, we looked dangerous. Unfortunately, we had two gritty, ball winning players, rather than ball players, and there was no fluidity to our play. They weren't even winning that the central midfield battle - their #30 I thought was excellent, broke up the play really well.

Hope the Walsall fans enjoy singing the 'EIEIEIO' song while they can. If that team is in the playoffs at season's end I'll be stunned.

 

[holdsteady]

Terrible performance, but it will be solved next week when Robinson changes a few players, obviously he will keep playing the 4,2,3,1 and we will probably lose but you can’t expect a manager to show tactical flexibility can you.

 

[RyanioBirdio]

How long can “I didn’t think we were too bad, bar the result” carry on? At what point is it going to change to “Jesus Christ, we just have to win some football matches and if that isn’t going to happen something has to change”?

It isn’t working, it doesn’t look like it’s about to change, and as it stands we are doomed. So my argument would be that if we are doomed, why not try a different personality with a different voice? Because the worst that happens is that the inevitable unfolds regardless. But you can try to be proactive and not harbor any notion that losing constantly is acceptable. That’s what is starting to happen. We have a losing mentality and too many people from the terraces to the changing room seem okay with this. That is when you plummet and spiral out of control.

Lose next weekend and for me, at that point, something needs to happen. I’m right on the brink but am not there just yet. Not yet. But I think people should be if another league defeat follows this.

 

[Jerome'SAle]

Shocked me that he didn't go to 442 when he brought Obika on and we were 1 down.

 

[mickbrownsconscience]

I remember Robbie Savage talking about that Derby side that went down with only a handful of points. He said "We actually had some pretty good players, but as a team we developed a losing mentality". I fear we could well be going the same way.
And despite 'Banbury2018' calling me a moron on the other thread, I still say that giving a 4-year contract to Hanson was daft and will come back to haunt us.

 

[werthersoriginal]

How long can “I didn’t think we were too bad, bar the result” carry on? At what point is it going to change to “Jesus Christ, we just have to win some football matches and if that isn’t going to happen something has to change”?

It isn’t working, it doesn’t look like it’s about to change, and as it stands we are doomed. So my argument would be that if we are doomed, why not try a different personality with a different voice? Because the worst that happens is that the inevitable unfolds regardless. But you can try to be proactive and not harbor any notion that losing constantly is acceptable. That’s what is starting to happen. We have a losing mentality and too many people from the terraces to the changing room seem okay with this. That is when you plummet and spiral out of control.

Lose next weekend and for me, at that point, something needs to happen. I’m right on the brink but am not there just yet. Not yet. But I think people should be if another league defeat follows this.

I’m dreading the Luton game. Danny will score and something annoying will happen, for sure. If we lose that and Wimbledon Karl’s position could look dodgy

 

[Corporate_Clive]

Lose the next match 7-0 and it might be deja-vu as they say in Spanish.

cant believe you wu compare pep to Kr.

 

[RyanioBirdio]

I’m dreading the Luton game. Danny will score and something annoying will happen, for sure. If we lose that and Wimbledon Karl’s position could look dodgy

We’ve lost 4/5 home games and have taken 5 points from 27. It’s already looking dodgy. We could legitimately get a quarter of the way through the season and have half a dozen points at best. If that happens even if we doubled that points tally for the other three quarters and got 12 points in each, we would end the season on around about 42 points. Guaranteed relegation.

This is what people need to start looking at. These are facts. We are already, right now, two games away from this.

 

[yellowbow]

We’ve lost 4/5 home games and have taken 5 points from 27. It’s already looking dodgy. We could legitimately get a quarter of the way through the season and have half a dozen points at best. If that happens even if we doubled that points tally for the other three quarters and got 12 points in each, we would end the season on around about 42 points. Guaranteed relegation.

This is what people need to start looking at. These are facts. We are already, right now, two games away from this.

Another couple of worrying statistics: Only 6 teams have scored fewer goals than us and only one team have conceded more. If we are a good team we’d better start showing it damn quick