Next Saturday

[Foley]

Is huge....

Oldham are on decent form but are nowhere near as good as Shrewsbury, Scunny, Plymouth, Pompey.

It is really important that supporters turn up and get behind the team.

Great crowd and win needed...

 

[Lundinsponytail]

I

Oldham's confidence will be higher than ours. A point would be better for them than us, but I would expect them to come for a win. Should be 'interesting' ....

Am sure that they will come for the win and feel they can get it.
We are a strange side at the moment. With the exception of first half Scunny we have mostly eliminated the truly terrible performances that we were capable of under Pep. Generally, we are competitive in games. But we remain deeply fallible in both boxes and who knows where that can lead to?
Next Saturday is a gigantic game because we have the opportunity to give ourselves real breathing space over Bury, Northampton, MK Dons and Oldham. And maybe other sides as well. We would not be 'safe' but the odds would be stacked in our favour with 6 games to go.
Lose, however, and regardless of what other teams do we are firmly in the dogfight and with appalling form to boot (we now have managed 34 points in our last 33 games.... truly terrible for a side with a budget of close to 3.5 million - double AFCW's for instance).
So I am inclined to agree we those who want to dramatize next Saturday's game and treat it like a play-off semi-final. If we do go down then one of the main contributory factors will have been the arrogant complacency displayed throughout the club in recent times. Time to jettison that next Saturday, roll up sleeves and treat Oldham with some serious respect and attention.

 

[holdsteady]

Sort of looking forward to it as it’s nice to have a big game, even if it’s only that for the wrong reason, in a season that has just drifted aimlessly with nearly all the attention being off field.

By now we all know that we are not up to much, but it’s cup finals till we either get enough points to stay up or we drop, so if the one thing we can do to help us get behind the team rather than get at them then it’s churlish to cut your nose off.

Roll on Saturday and a proper game of football.

 

[oxonian]

Need to win two of the next three home games to give us some breathing space, and to ease the pressure.

 

[Navegante]

Surely qualifies as a "must-win"

 

[Deleted member 462]

Surely qualifies as a "must-win"

Must win - no
6pointer - quite possibly
Relief - Definitely

 

[Concretebob]

Technically, no. If we lose we’re not relegated.

Try to telling that to the likes of Kip on here!

 

[Corporate_Clive]

I am certainly not bored being a supporter of this football club!

 

[Concretebob]

Northampton and Bury are gone. Rochdale have work to do. MK have a really tough run in. Personally I think that will be the bottom four. Don't mind putting my neck on the line there. The likes of kip are welcome to drag this thread up if it all goes to pot.

Lose Saturday and results go against us, fair enough time to panic. Just don't panic yet.

 

[yellowbow]

I’ve come down to the seaside with the family for the rest of the week but actually had a sleepless night last night thinking about our league position and all the different scenarios. IF we did go down I can see dark days ahead. Players we want to keep will leave, players we want shot of we might not be able to afford to pay off, Robinson might depart leaving us looking yet again for a new manager, and I’m pretty sure Tigers plans for investors didn’t include relegation to league 2, the implications of that are for another time..

However, having said all that, in the cold light of a fresh new day, I’m feeling more confident that we’ll be ok. Looking at the table, a couple of wins and maybe a point somewhere else and I think we’ll be home and dry. So next Saturday is our biggest game since we got back in the league in my view for the importance riding on it. Win and a lot of the pressure drops off, we then go into the Fleetwood game in a good frame of mind on and off the pitch, which’ll enable us to get at least another point in that one. Lose and it all cranks up another few notches, with the league table looking a lot less healthy. It’s difficult to know how to treat Saturdays game in that note. Is it built up as a kind of d-day game, a do or die cup final or should it be played down as just another fixture to help take some of the pressure off of the players?

 

[iambungle]

Technically, no. If we lose we’re not relegated.

I would look past your technicality and say it is a 'must-win'. Purely because we have never taken so much as a point off of Fleetwood (who must also be quite close to the top of the current 'form table') and we hardly ever get anything off Southend either.

 

[m]

I would look past your technicality and say it is a 'must-win'. Purely because we have never taken so much as a point off of Fleetwood (who must also be quite close to the top of the current 'form table') and we hardly ever get anything off Southend either.

Point of order but we have taken so much as a point off of Fleetwood, albeit exactly 1 point, and 1 point only.

 

[Banbury2018]

I would look past your technicality and say it is a 'must-win'. Purely because we have never taken so much as a point off of Fleetwood (who must also be quite close to the top of the current 'form table') and we hardly ever get anything off Southend either.

AFC Wimbledon hadn’t ever taken a point off us before last season in10 or so games but now have 9. Also we had never won a league game at the Valley or a league game at Oldham so history is exactly what it is history( in the past). Don’t care how the next 5 or 6 points come but I wish they would hurry up and then we can move on ready for a summer of BIG change.

 

[yellowbow]

But we MIGHT beat both Fleetwood and Southend. Technicality remains intact. If we lose to Oldham, we are not relegated, therefore not a 'must win'. (PS We might also win at Wigan etc ....)

TECHNICALLY I might get lucky with Kate Beckinsale.. yeah.. more chance of us putting six passed Fleetwood..

 

[Sarge]

Is huge....

Oldham are on decent form but are nowhere near as good as Shrewsbury, Scunny, Plymouth, Pompey.

It is really important that supporters turn up and get behind the team.

Great crowd and win needed...

Being a bit awkward as per....THIS Saturday we play Oldham....Fleetwood a week THIS evening...and we play Southend NEXT Saturday....that apart.....and 9 points from the 3 home games would be ideal, sentiments of post spot on methinks

When I saw the thread title I assumed it was about our match against one of our bogey sides sarfend

 

[bicesterox]

TECHNICALLY I might get lucky with Kate Beckinsale.. yeah.. more chance of us putting six passed Fleetwood..

But we MUST WIN or my old ticker may not last til the end of the season..... being an Oxford fan should come with a health warning

 

[iambungle]

Point of order but we have taken so much as a point off of Fleetwood, albeit exactly 1 point, and 1 point only.

So we have! Lost all home games though

 

[windmill]

The one crumb of comfort is that survival is in our own hands. I do not want to rely on other teams slipping up.

 

[mooro]

We have to be patient with these three games and not panic if the first doesn't go the way we want.
I also suspect that it won't, mainly because of Craig Davies - who is scoring regularly and is bound to get one if not two against us (ex-player syndrome)
So unless we can pull off a 3-2 then we wont be starting with a win

 

[RATC]

Just had a look at referee for Saturday. Eddie Ilderton. He's refereed 2 of our games Rotherham Away and Bradford Away. 1 Oldham game in a 2-0 loss to Wigan. Seems to be one of the lenient refs only giving out 80 cards (7 reds) from 26 games. Same ref who sent Wyke of for that tackle on Carroll at Bradford.