Away Match Day Thread 26/11/2024 - Championship: Sheffield United V OUFC

[Northstandboy]

Rate the OUFC players:

 

[Kernow Yellow]

Although I wouldn’t put it that strongly, I completely agree. Could someone from that group of drongos please tell me how they think that helps the team? It’s brainless, moronic and very boring. And not funny.

I'm reluctant to comment on our fans at games I didn't go to, but I was absolutely cringing at the telly during the ironic oles, 'we've lost the ball', and 'if Oxford score we're on the pitch' [no you aren't], which all came across clearly. It's all very tinpot and embarrassing. Even the Sky commentators said 'that's a bit harsh' during the oles. I was pleased a significant group seemed to try and drown the silliness out with supportive chants. It's a shame because overall our support was excellent.

 

[BanburyAL]

Be interesting to see how Millwall get on at Portsmouth tonight, they win comfortably and then you worry about Saturday a bit, they drop points then we really do need to be sat least matching that result.

Think it will be a worry anyway as only Sheffield United have picked up more points than them in the last 6 games.

 

[Yellow River]

Midfield is the main issue for me.

Vaulks and mceachran can’t play as a lone #6 whilst putting Brannagan in a double pivot is a waste.

We need a genuine #6 that can break up play and play a bit. A tough find in January.

I would also add our lack of wingers (until the last 2 games) have seen Goodrham shunted out wide when he is most effective through the middle. Rodrigues has been a passenger for many weeks now (I highlighted it in the Rodrigues thread) but realistically, what competition is there? The squad players are league one standard.

It’s no use getting angry about the players level, they deserved a chance to show they can step up (we also can’t turn over an entire squad in one window), but I suspect we will start to see the slow release of some of there players should we find some quality (good luck in January!)

Is Ethan Erhahon that player? Could he make the step up from League 1 to the Championship?

 

[holdsteady]

Think it will be a worry anyway as only Sheffield United have picked up more points than them in the last 6 games.

It’s going to be a tough game but only so many games you can write off, at this rate we will be needing a 100% winning record against the bottom half teams in our remaining games to stay up, for a side who haven’t won an away game yet and have only two draws from eight games that is not happening.

 

[holdsteady]

I appreciate injuries to players who are key to the way we play have had a negative impact on performances especially the last two games where we haven’t been or looked competitive, Swansea was another recent game where we’re second best.

However earlier in the season we were competitive so there is cause for optimism, we can get back on track. The way Des likes to set up the team it’s crucial that our wide/pacy players are available. Placenta and Phillips need to stay fit, Edwards is due ‘back on the grass’ next week, might he still have a part to play?

Nelson is a loss but we shouldn’t be over reliant on a young loanee centre back. With Moore and Kioso returning our back line suddenly looks a lot stronger.

This season so far has been relentless and we’re only 17 games in, it a huge leap from League One to the Championship, it feels like every game is an FA Cup tie, with plucky little Oxford the underdogs. The Championship is where we want to be but for once the cliche ‘no easy games in this league’ is true especially for us. It’s exciting but exhausting at the same time. One or two players already look tired mentally.

Like many have already said it the games against Plymouth, Cardiff, QPR, Portsmouth which will be crucial.

Can we get enough points to stay up against those four team to stay up? Think the net might have to be cast a bit wider, any game against the rest of the bottom half we need to be looking get something, it’s why the Swansea loss was so disappointing.

I also think relying on Edwards for a good 45 minutes every 3/4 months isn’t going to help that much, we need a more robust option than him.

 

[Sarge]

Need to find a way to get Goodrham back on it. Probably our most effective technical player but at the minute he’s no more than a headless chicken in recent matches, he’s better than scrapping about for the ball out wide and just running down blind alleys.

isnt he due to be, or has just become a dad?- also after last nights yellow card, his next booking before the cut off point will get him a 1 match suspension ( think he has notched up 5 bookings including last night, though one of them was in the league cup if memory serves?)

I think he's generally more effective playing in the middle, not as he has been lately on one or the other flank

 

[Sheik djibouti]

The triangle of 6 and the two CBs is absolutely key to our performance this season (and that's before you begin to think about our injury woes out wide). We're seriously lacking at CB. Brown is a decent Lg1 CB, but he is right at the top of his game (imho) as a lower level Champ CB. Moore is marginally better, but has become a walking yellow card. Long was never anyone's first choice at CB, even in Lg1, so hardly surprising he was repeatedly waltzed around with such ease last night. Nelson is a big miss and we desperately need to find an equivalent or better replacement (plus one other CD) in January.

As others have said, a Champ standard 6 is also an imperative. We're just too easy to play through right now and we don't have enough quality outlets available when we do get the ball.

Always knew this would be a long season . . .

 

[Osei Yaw]

Sheffield United's keeper last night cost twice the amount of our (injured) record signing. They also spent about £25m on Vini Souza and Hamer. Burrows was a very good player in League 1 last season. He cost them £3m and sat on the bench all night.

I am all for being optimistic and demanding the best from ourselves, but it can be counter productive to set unrealistic expectations and then feel downhearted at results like last night. My minimum expectation is that our players try their best. I never want to see the players jack it in and there needs to be bare minimums around supporting each other and pulling together to get ourselves through the tough games in the most positive way we can. And who knows, we may just nick the odd point here and there.

But we also need to be realistic that we have players in our current squad who no other Championship team would want. That's not to say the sum of these players can't contribute to something greater, but results so far have shown it's much more likely we will see that contribution against the bottom half of teams in this league.

Nobody gave us a chance before a ball was kicked and we were everyone's favourites to finish bottom. Yet here we are, a third of the way in and a quarter of the teams in the league would rather our position than theirs. Obviously we are in a sticky spell, that was always likely to happen. But I firmly believe the simplest way out of it and for the remainder of the season is positivity and defiance. Not only is it productive, it's also a lot more fun. By all means, pick the bones out of things on here, but come Saturday we need all fans to do their bit to create a positive atmosphere. Watford away really is the blueprint. Just non-stop support and positivity for the entire game. As fans it's one of the only things we can control and if it helps us nick an extra 1 or 2 points then that could well be crucial come the end of the season.

 

[werthersoriginal]

The triangle of 6 and the two CBs is absolutely key to our performance this season (and that's before you begin to think about our injury woes out wide). We're seriously lacking at CB. Brown is a decent Lg1 CB, but he is right at the top of his game (imho) as a lower level Champ CB. Moore is marginally better, but has become a walking yellow card. Long was never anyone's first choice at CB, even in Lg1, so hardly surprising he was repeatedly waltzed around with such ease last night. Nelson is a big miss and we desperately need to find an equivalent or better replacement (plus one other CD) in January.

As others have said, a Champ standard 6 is also an imperative. We're just too easy to play through right now and we don't have enough quality outlets available when we do get the ball.

Always knew this would be a long season . . .

Thing is though, that defence was pretty good at the start of the season, even including Sam Long. Going to the league leaders without Moore is clearly a step too far, but it's more like a malaise has affected the whole team and they're no longer playing with the same aggression and focus.

 

[Joey]

Burrows was a very good player in League 1 last season. He cost them £3m and sat on the bench all night.

Burrows was the best player in League 1 last season, is a full back who as you say cost three times our record signing and was benched. To put it in more context we had seven players who were with us last season and rather than the divisions player of the year we were playing a left back who wasn't even out first choice a level below in a defence that also included Sam Long at centre back.

By all means we should be having a go but let's not pretend that because we're in the same division currently there isn't an enormous disparity in resources. It's a completely different world.

 

[Chippy]

Plenty of talk about the weakness we have in midfield, and that we’re too easy to get through and not getting much possession or able to hold onto the ball.

I suspect most teams have now watched us closely and sussed us out easily. Part of the problem is probably the system we play, it could be this that needs to change as well as a few of the personnel. Apart from the odd 5 at the back, we almost always play 4-2-3-1, at least that’s the intention. I think we need to be more flexible and fluid going forward, and get much tighter as a unit when not in possession. Our current formation just doesn’t seem to deliver on those fronts any longer. We’ve been seriously out played ever since the Bristol game. Even at home Swansea and Hull first half were able to waltz through us time and again, I seriously think we to need to tweak the way we set up and our general approach to games. Our wingers are often isolated and don’t help out enough defensively, everyone is just too rigid and we’ve become frightened to take a chance or make mistakes as we seem to be punished far too often when we do.

Quite a lot needs to change, from our general game play to a big transfer window in early Jan if we are to stay up this season.

 

[Up The Manor]

I appreciate injuries to players who are key to the way we play have had a negative impact on performances especially the last two games where we haven’t been or looked competitive, Swansea was another recent game where we’re second best.

However earlier in the season we were competitive so there is cause for optimism, we can get back on track. The way Des likes to set up the team it’s crucial that our wide/pacy players are available. Placenta and Phillips need to stay fit, Edwards is due ‘back on the grass’ next week, might he still have a part to play?

Nelson is a loss but we shouldn’t be over reliant on a young loanee centre back. With Moore and Kioso returning our back line suddenly looks a lot stronger.

This season so far has been relentless and we’re only 17 games in, it a huge leap from League One to the Championship, it feels like every game is an FA Cup tie, with plucky little Oxford the underdogs. The Championship is where we want to be but for once the cliche ‘no easy games in this league’ is true especially for us. It’s exciting but exhausting at the same time. One or two players already look tired mentally.

Like many have already said it the games against Plymouth, Cardiff, QPR, Portsmouth which will be crucial.

I think we should move on from Signing players like Edwards .The fact he is never available is why we are in a fine mess now .Squad places need taking up by players that are fit and avaliable.

 

[Gregortheox]

We can’t have the injuries we have had and expect to compete really.
It’s ridiculous in all honesty and paramount that we are aggressive in January.

 

[chromeyellow]

Thing is though, that defence was pretty good at the start of the season, even including Sam Long. Going to the league leaders without Moore is clearly a step too far, but it's more like a malaise has affected the whole team and they're no longer playing with the same aggression and focus.

Yes the defence was pretty good. With Kioso. And Moore, And a threat of pace on the flanks from Dembele/Placheta

 

[SirAndyOfCrosby]

By all means we should be having a go but let's not pretend that because we're in the same division currently there isn't an enormous disparity in resources. It's a completely different world.

Yeap, that's why we got battered by Burnley, West Brom, Luton and Norwich too.

Oh. Wait.

 

[holdsteady]

Plenty of talk about the weakness we have in midfield, and that we’re too easy to get through and not getting much possession or able to hold onto the ball.

I suspect most teams have now watched us closely and sussed us out easily. Part of the problem is probably the system we play, it could be this that needs to change as well as a few of the personnel. Apart from the odd 5 at the back, we almost always play 4-2-3-1, at least that’s the intention. I think we need to be more flexible and fluid going forward, and get much tighter as a unit when not in possession. Our current formation just doesn’t seem to deliver on those fronts any longer. We’ve been seriously out played ever since the Bristol game. Even at home Swansea and Hull first half were able to waltz through us time and again, I seriously think we to need to tweak the way we set up and our general approach to games. Our wingers are often isolated and don’t help out enough defensively, everyone is just too rigid and we’ve become frightened to take a chance or make mistakes as we seem to be punished far too often when we do.

Quite a lot needs to change, from our general game play to a big transfer window in early Jan if we are to stay up this season.

Definitely been a big fall off, we have gone from draws to Luton, Burnley, West Brom (so two of the teams relegated from the prem and a contender) to uncompetitive losses to Sunderland, Middlesbrough, Sheff U and a competitive but could have been bigger loss to Watford in a month, with a loss and a win at home to Hull and Swansea, that's one win in 6 and barely a decent decent performance in that time. This was always going to happen but it can't drag on to long else it will leave us to much work to do to get out of it, we are not going to go on a run like the one after we got hammered away at Bolton last season, to many good teams in this division so we need to find a way to chip away at the points total needed to stay up very soon.

 

[chromeyellow]

Plenty of talk about the weakness we have in midfield, and that we’re too easy to get through and not getting much possession or able to hold onto the ball.

I suspect most teams have now watched us closely and sussed us out easily. Part of the problem is probably the system we play, it could be this that needs to change as well as a few of the personnel. Apart from the odd 5 at the back, we almost always play 4-2-3-1, at least that’s the intention. I think we need to be more flexible and fluid going forward, and get much tighter as a unit when not in possession. Our current formation just doesn’t seem to deliver on those fronts any longer. We’ve been seriously out played ever since the Bristol game. Even at home Swansea and Hull first half were able to waltz through us time and again, I seriously think we to need to tweak the way we set up and our general approach to games. Our wingers are often isolated and don’t help out enough defensively, everyone is just too rigid and we’ve become frightened to take a chance or make mistakes as we seem to be punished far too often when we do.

Quite a lot needs to change, from our general game play to a big transfer window in early Jan if we are to stay up this season.

Taking a chance means that it doesnlt always come off.

 

[Essexyellows]

Definitely been a big fall off, we have gone from draws to Luton, Burnley, West Brom (so two of the teams relegated from the prem and a contender) to uncompetitive losses to Sunderland, Middlesbrough, Sheff U and a competitive but could have been bigger loss to Watford in a month, with a loss and a win at home to Hull and Swansea, that's one win in 6 and barely a decent decent performance in that time. This was always going to happen but it can't drag on to long else it will leave us to much work to do to get out of it, we are not going to go on a run like the one after we got hammered away at Bolton last season, to many good teams in this division so we need to find a way to chip away at the points total needed to stay up very soon.

There is no reason why not.
We have injuries that will return same as other clubs.
We have players that have bad days same as other clubs.
We can beat anyone on our day same as other clubs.

Its a marathon not a sprint and the transfer window might be interesting... keep the faith, I reckon Des has a lot of credit in the bank with both the board and the supporters.

As for fans taking the p*ss, anyone who travels to Sheffield midweek spending their time & money is fully entitled to voice their opinion.

 

[Chippy]

Taking a chance means that it doesnlt always come off.

But not taking a chance isn’t exactly working, we’ve got to be far more positive and not sitting ducks waiting for the opposition to break through us and score when they take their numerous chances! We’re just far too pedestrian and predictable at the moment.

 

[Scrongo]

Being GUK is not an easy thing to shout about

Are you GJ ??