Transfer News Summer 2023 Post-Transfer Window

[Left Wing Cross]

Cameron Cooper Joins Oxford’s Academy

Oxford United Academy are delighted to announce the signing of Scottish striker Cameron Cooper who completed his scholarship at Rangers.

www.oufc.co.uk

 

[Mystery Yellow]

Yes; Perkins is a strange one. I trust LM’s judgement so it’s odd that Perkins hasn’t been able to jump into the available space. Comes with a good pedigree- so doubly puzzling.

A development signing which we didn’t really need as we have that already in O’Donkor. I think come January I do hope if we’re still in this great position we kick on & go all out for a Top Striker + also upgrade at Right Back I just see Sam Long as our biggest weak link in the side we’ve seen already the upgrade Greg Leigh have done for us at LB/LWB same needs doing on the right

 

[TailsWeWin]

Let’s hope the management recognize how much of a weakness Long is at full back. I’m sure they do. Leigh’s form has only served to highlight what we have missed at full back for a while now. We really cannot afford to be so weak in defence down our right flank; Bristol Rovers gave us a glimpse of the problem we have there.

 

[Grumpy Git]

Let’s hope the management recognize how much of a weakness Long is at full back. I’m sure they do. Leigh’s form has only served to highlight what we have missed at full back for a while now. We really cannot afford to be so weak in defence down our right flank; Bristol Rovers gave us a glimpse of the problem we have there.

Yeah and he also scored the winning goal!

 

[TailsWeWin]

Yeah and he also scored the winning goal!

Oh, that’s OK then.

 

[Whingit]

Long was one of our better players against Rovers lol. They played a few long diagonals because playing with wing-backs leaves that space vulnerable and Stevens wasn't offering much help. Once we changed formation and long was actually playing fullback instead of centre back we were much more solid.

 

[TailsWeWin]

Long was one of our better players against Rovers lol. They played a few long diagonals because playing with wing-backs leaves that space vulnerable and Stevens wasn't offering much help. Once we changed formation and long was actually playing fullback instead of centre back we were much more solid.

I agree Long has given the club tremendous service over the years, and of course he’s “one of our own.” He has made a massive contribution to the club’s development and scored some vital goals. But if we are to progress, then we CANNOT ignore his defensive frailties.

 

[Leysboy]

I agree Long has given the club tremendous service over the years, and of course he’s “one of our own.” He has made a massive contribution to the club’s development and scored some vital goals. But if we are to progress, then we CANNOT ignore his defensive frailties.

He’s definitely not Championship standard that’s for certain.

Model pro, but his ceiling is Lge 1.

 

[Foley]

Long was one of our better players against Rovers lol. They played a few long diagonals because playing with wing-backs leaves that space vulnerable and Stevens wasn't offering much help. Once we changed formation and long was actually playing fullback instead of centre back we were much more solid.

Long was playing against ( I think) the L1 player of the season from last year, with little cover ( that was fixed in the second half)

 

[Whingit]

I agree Long has given the club tremendous service over the years, and of course he’s “one of our own.” He has made a massive contribution to the club’s development and scored some vital goals. But if we are to progress, then we CANNOT ignore his defensive frailties.

Obviously Long has a ceiling, I just think that he's currently our best right back and we are weaker defensively when Stevens plays. He's the weakness imo.

 

[ZeroTheHero]

Whilst I don't think Long has ever quite recaptured the form he had for that one season and he is sometimes vulnerable defensively, I'm not sure the Bristol game is a stick with which you can beat him.

Stevens was often way up the pitch and it was fairly obvious from an early stage in the game that our defensive shape was entirely wrong to cope with their two wide players, who quite often were the very definition of 'chalk on their boots'. There were acres of space for both of them and Long was covering the entirety of that space on the right while also trying to do his job more centrally. In an ideal world, I do think he needs some serious competition as a defensive right back (when we are 4 at the back) to compete with him for a place with Stevens being used when we do go three at the back against teams both narrower and less aggressive than Bristol Rovers were..

 

[Nadi-]

It was Mannings problem to address, and he did.
Cover is your defence as a defender, leaving 3 against 3 just leads to trouble.

 

[Northernyellow]

I've never really rated Sam Long. Busts a gut but he's very average L1 standard (at best). Having said that, I agree he's probably the best RB we have in the club at the moment- Stevens is ok, but not really an upgrade. I would imagine Long will be replaced in January and will stay as a squad player (which is fine). As soon as we get a high calibre RB in thorough the door, people will immediately understand why Long isn't good enough.

 

[Big Ron]

A development signing which we didn’t really need as we have that already in O’Donkor. I think come January I do hope if we’re still in this great position we kick on & go all out for a Top Striker

What a strange comment. I'm not suggesting he's the answer to our problems but we can and should have, have more than one development striker and still go out in January and look to recruit, if needs be.

 

[tatabanya]

A development signing which we didn’t really need as we have that already in O’Donkor. I think come January I do hope if we’re still in this great position we kick on & go all out for a Top Striker + also upgrade at Right Back I just see Sam Long as our biggest weak link in the side we’ve seen already the upgrade Greg Leigh have done for us at LB/LWB same needs doing on the right

Do you ever need a development signing?

 

[WRox]

I've never really rated Sam Long. Busts a gut but he's very average L1 standard (at best). Having said that, I agree he's probably the best RB we have in the club at the moment- Stevens is ok, but not really an upgrade. I would imagine Long will be replaced in January and will stay as a squad player (which is fine). As soon as we get a high calibre RB in thorough the door, people will immediately understand why Long isn't good enough.

I hope there’s a right footed Greg Leigh out there somewhere. Long’s a good L1 squad player, he’s outperformed Stevens this season, but we can and should find better.

 

[tonyw]

Let’s hope the management recognize how much of a weakness Long is at full back. I’m sure they do. Leigh’s form has only served to highlight what we have missed at full back for a while now. We really cannot afford to be so weak in defence down our right flank; Bristol Rovers gave us a glimpse of the problem we have there.

Thing is - one week earlier, literally every Stevenage attack (including the goal) came down the right flank; they created nothing at all down the left all game. Rovers certainly flipped that this Saturday......but at least in part that's because Aaron Collins is just a much, much better player than Jevani Brown.

Greg Leigh is an awesome footballer. He's clearly a great teammate and character, he's strong in the air, has a wand of a left foot and an amazing engine. But he's very much an attacking fullback or wingback. Is his defensive discipline, positioning and awareness better than Sam Long? I don't think we've seen enough yet to be able to say that it definitely is.

Leigh's presence makes us way more dangerous going forwards down our left. So yeah, if we signed a right-footed version of him, it would improve us. But are we definitely stronger defensively down that side? I'm not convinced yet.

I don't disagree that Sam Long's ceiling is as a solid League One player - but I think it's a leap to be making him out to be an absolute liability. He made a couple of mistakes on Saturday....that happens, this is League One!

 

[SteMerritt]

I hope there’s a right footed Greg Leigh out there somewhere. Long’s a good L1 squad player, he’s outperformed Stevens this season, but we can and should find better.

2 of them in the same team? This forum would spontaneously combust with excitement...

 

[Marked Ox]

2 of them in the same team? This forum would spontaneously combust with excitement...

And moan when we concede a few because of it.

 

[Eric Blair]

Does anyone have any intel on how Max Woltman is performing in training and what his future role is likely to be? I ask for the obvious reason of wanting a strong Oxford Utd squad but also for the fact that when I bought FIFA for my daughter to play on the Nintendo I basically took over 18 months ago and bought Max Woltman to Oxford and he’s since been on a champions league winning run for the mighty yellows. Pretty sure Liam heard about this which spurred him on to buy him.