Ex-Player Thread Josh McEachran

McEachran.avif
Josh McEachran 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

Signed
: 16th June 2023
Departed: 16th May 2025

 
Last edited:
Not good enough, let's stay up and a massive job in the summer with recruitment
 
Is Josh injured or does Rowett not rate him? He's not played since the FA cup and his last appearance in the squad was at Plymouth 2 months ago.
To be honest I'd completely forgotten about him.
Was told he wasn’t in the manager’s plans but he made the decision to stay rather than go out on loan.
 
Our best passer of the ball and set piece taker is dropped, when our team is notorious for giving away possession and s**t dead balls.
 
I'd actually be tempted to start him alongside Matos. Obviously he can't get around the pitch, but Matos would mitigate that and he would actually give us a ball-playing option who's comfortable facing his own goal when we're trying to play out from goal kicks. Part of our problem at the moment with playing out from the back is that without Greg Leigh bombing on, we don't have an out ball and it ends up with Brown receiving the ball 25 yards from his own goal, playing it inside to Vaulks who then doesn't have the composure to play on from there. We then either lose it close to our own goal or end up hoofing it just so it's away from our own goal.

But as long as Phillips isn't starting in a wide attacking position I'll go into the game with some confidence.
 
How many McEachrans are there? The whole family is trying to reverse the decline in western birthrates.

Josh with us, George with Grimsby, Zach with Oxford City.

There are two other siblings too. Will McEachran is a barber in Kidlington (and he’s mastered the footballer’s skinfade by the looks too - https://www.instagram.com/willmceachran_barber/) who had a spell with North Leigh a few seasons back. There’s also a sister Danielle.

Plenty of McEachrans to go around.
 
Josh with us, George with Grimsby, Zach with Oxford City.

There are two other siblings too. Will McEachran is a barber in Kidlington (and he’s mastered the footballer’s skinfade by the looks too - https://www.instagram.com/willmceachran_barber/) who had a spell with North Leigh a few seasons back. There’s also a sister Danielle.

Plenty of McEachrans to go around.
There looked to be many many mini Josh McEachran's on the pitch after the Sunderland game too!
 
Still adamant that his performance in the Peterborough 5-0 game last season is one of the best individual performances I've ever seen from an Oxford player - he absolutely breezed it. Didn't look too out of place in the Championship early on this season either. If he had a body built for football then he'd have numerous England caps, probably the best technical player I've seen for us.
 
Still adamant that his performance in the Peterborough 5-0 game last season is one of the best individual performances I've ever seen from an Oxford player - he absolutely breezed it. Didn't look too out of place in the Championship early on this season either. If he had a body built for football then he'd have numerous England caps, probably the best technical player I've seen for us.

When it works with McEachran, it's beautiful to watch. The knitting together of passes and smooth movement of the ball is joyful. When it doesn't and he's pressed, it all goes flat. There's no in between.

It was going so smoothly at one point. He started in the early season wins against Preston and Stoke and then got injured in the next game against Bristol City when we were 1-0 up (and undeservedly lost 2-1. That Mark Harris miss though ... 🫣) and it was the beginning of the end. Our momentum went and from being attacking and using the wingers to being cautious, defensive and fragile. McEachran came back in after the gear change and couldn't switch it. We couldn't use his best traits and ended up seeing his limitations, which have always been known; he's slow and the game can pass him by.

Nearing his mid-30s now, League 1 is his level nowadays. He'll rock up somewhere else, mixing up starts where he lasts 60 minutes and then neatly doing the passing role from the subs bench to keep a desired result just that. Oddly, his brother Zach for Oxford City is nearly always subbed on 60 minutes too. The McEachran gene makes you brilliant at football but caps that brilliance to one hour seemingly.
 
A poor signing. No impact, not great fitness levels and one career goal in about 400 games tells you what sort of ageing midfielder we were getting.
It tells you we were getting an experienced holding midfielder who’s ability at playing a deeper, sitting role allows others to get forward and attack.
He was exactly the type of player we needed in the squad of a league 1 team aiming for promotion.
Just like how Will Vaulks is exactly the type of player we needed this season in a Championship squad aiming for survival.
 
It tells you we were getting an experienced holding midfielder who’s ability at playing a deeper, sitting role allows others to get forward and attack.
He was exactly the type of player we needed in the squad of a league 1 team aiming for promotion.
Just like how Will Vaulks is exactly the type of player we needed this season in a Championship squad aiming for survival.


Dress it up however you like but 1 in 400 is borderline pathetic for a goalkeeper, never mind a midfielder ! One of the most over hyped, over rated footballers of his generation.
 
Dress it up however you like but 1 in 400 is borderline pathetic for a goalkeeper, never mind a midfielder ! One of the most over hyped, over rated footballers of his generation.

Yet he made near 400 appearances under many different managers. They must see contributions to those teams as positive otherwise he wouldn't have made a quarter of that number of appearances. What they see in him, it would appear, you do not value as highly.
 
Back
Top Bottom