Manager/Coach KRs worst moment of the season....

Sarge

God like member
Joined
6 Dec 2017
Messages
54,405
as revealed in OM , Eastys injury .......

https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/sport/...AHlRTxZvFqrjpEbLflDbN6FRzrACO6zaEC6EeHvaA8-ks

for me Easty's injury wasnt one of the better moments of this campaign .... but, injurys, even freak ones, do happen in football

but the worst moment(s) for me for OUFC this season have to be financial mismanagement of an epic proportion resulting in not one
or even two, but five WUPs (so far) .... avoidable, except our bowtie bedecked owner seems to have an aversion, for what ever reason, to having a UK account with enough funds to cover all bills plenty of time in advance (with compliance rules, regs n laws in mind )
 
off field issues aside it does make you wonder if Eastwoods injury hadn't have happened would we be a lot better off points wise, or with the late signings and other injuries would it've made that much of a difference. no question he's made us stronger and given the defence confidence but don't think that poor start can be all put down to him not playing.
either way, I hope we keep him for next season
 
Last edited:
You could point at a number of things.
Kashi and Graham signings
Mousinho moving to central midfield

I would agree however that Eastwood getting fit is the biggest thing this season as far as the improvement in form is concerned.

Nelson is going to take some replacing but if Eastwood was to go ...
 
Controversial opinion maybe, but Easty hasn't played THAT well this season. Certainly not by his high standards.
That said, it gave the team a lift when he was back fit.
Jono played OK, but had zero presence back there when we needed it the most.

Not a dig at Easty by any means and I hope he stays for years, but I reckon we may have only been a couple of points better off if he was fit the whole season.
 
I disagree, he has been fundamental in our improvement since he came back from injury.
 
Controversial opinion maybe, but Easty hasn't played THAT well this season. Certainly not by his high standards.
That said, it gave the team a lift when he was back fit.
Jono played OK, but had zero presence back there when we needed it the most.

Not a dig at Easty by any means and I hope he stays for years, but I reckon we may have only been a couple of points better off if he was fit the whole season.
maybe his bone poking through his finger has affected his performance. sounded a nasty injury. agree in a way though. last season he seemed a much better keeper. perhaps it needs someone chasing him for his shirt
 
Eastwood's injury sure didn't help. But there were many factors why we started the season so badly.

The worst moment for me was the shambolic recruitment in summer. We were incredibly slow in putting the squad together so much so that players were still arriving after we had started and then they had had no preseason so were woefully unfit (some even signed injured). Add to this the patchy squad lacking options at left back, and with a woeful strike force (a problem still not fully fixed). Then the fact the squad seemingly had no holding midfielder (it took way too long to realise that Mousinho was the answer here not the expensive panic buy that is Hanson). We have had too many of our summer signings fail to be of much use and we have been playing catch up ever since.

The bright parts of this season is how some of our younger players have stepped in to fill some of the gaping holes in the squad (Long and Ruffles have been a good part of why we have been more solid recently). I feel without Eastwood's and maybe Baptiste's and Hall's injuries we would be comfortable by now but I still don't think we would be seriously challenging for play off places. The positive now is that the Jan windows was a much better one for us, however we still rely way to heavily on loans to ean that in the summer we face another big rebuild.
 
Eastwood's been a bit flappy in recent games but overall he's better than most keepers in this league. Other than him, I think what really hit us were the injuries to Carruthers, Hall, and dare I say it, Obika. Carruthers had an assured pre-season as a holding midfielder where Kashi has now come in, Hall is similar to Graham in some ways, and Obika would at least have been an option up front that we were lacking until Sinclair came along. If you added those three to the team in the opening weeks of the season, it wouldn't have been much weaker than what we're finishing the season with.
 
Eastwood's been a bit flappy in recent games but overall he's better than most keepers in this league. Other than him, I think what really hit us were the injuries to Carruthers, Hall, and dare I say it, Obika. Carruthers had an assured pre-season as a holding midfielder where Kashi has now come in, Hall is similar to Graham in some ways, and Obika would at least have been an option up front that we were lacking until Sinclair came along. If you added those three to the team in the opening weeks of the season, it wouldn't have been much weaker than what we're finishing the season with.

Obika was around for a number of the opening games so I'm not sure we could use his injury entirely. However, I think Robinson had seen that Sam Smith might not be the player he needed, and Mackie was still off the pace. He would have looked to bring in someone else on loan but couldn't because we needed a keeper for Eastwood.

Of course injuries happen, but to lose 3 players in the first week of a season is very unlucky and would have disrupted most teams. With games coming so quickly it was difficult to find the time to put together a settled replacement, and too many players were changed around in those opening games. It's a results game and once we had a few heavy defeats, I think Robinson panicked and that led to some unneccessary changes in the team and many of the post game interviews that appear to have turned many against him. But to his credit, he made changes to the way we played and put together a side that was a consistent plan b, even if that meant moving away from his ideal first 11. Since October, performances, results and his touchline antics have been significanttly better and deserve recognition.

47 points from the last 30 games. 19 from the last 8. 4 wins in a row. Performances against Sunderland x 2, Barnsley and Portsmouth, battling wins against Blackpool, Coventry etc. These are all things that should give us confidence that we can compete next season, and our business in January shows that we have the know-how to put things right in the summer.
 
I am not sure about Obika being much use to us fit or not. He would have been a body on the pitch true but a good forward very doubtful. The loan to cover Eastwood was a down to a massive mistake in the summer that was the re-signing of Shearer. Fancy having a reserve keeper not good enough to play!

I would say our poor preseason was a contributor to fitness levels and the need to chop and change early on. Many were not fully fit and we had not had time to iron out the team or formation. The first weeks of the season were like our preseason. I wonder if this preseason had a effect on the injuries too.

I have to admit I have been anti-KR but in the last week weeks he has the team delivering good performances. In fact he has definitely done enough for me to give him support for next season.

Our business in Jan was good but we are still way too reliant on loans for many of our key players. This summer we must get the core business done a couple of weeks prior ro the season starting. We must remain realistic in who we can sign. We need more balance to the squad and somehow we need to shift the dead wood (fortunately some are out of contract). In no way am I a KR fan yet but if we have a good preseason I think we can look forward to a much better campaign next year (hopefully not derailed by the money mess that Tiger has inflicted on the club).
 
Last edited:
Eastwood's been a bit flappy in recent games but overall he's better than most keepers in this league. Other than him, I think what really hit us were the injuries to Carruthers, Hall, and dare I say it, Obika. Carruthers had an assured pre-season as a holding midfielder where Kashi has now come in, Hall is similar to Graham in some ways, and Obika would at least have been an option up front that we were lacking until Sinclair came along. If you added those three to the team in the opening weeks of the season, it wouldn't have been much weaker than what we're finishing the season with.

Don’t forget Baptiste, for he was just starting to firmly establish himself. Most potential and talent out all our young players imo
 
Not forgetting of course that we headed off to Ireland pre-season with a very bareboned squad. Hardly enough players to field a team in a couple of games and it spiralled downwards from there.
 
To me, this season is about the shitty start we had, the unpaid bills and consequant threats from whoever, the great comeback we've had and the lack of a dog running onto the pitch.
 
Back
Top Bottom