Home Match Day Thread 20/02/2024 L1: OUFC v Northampton Town

[Northstandboy]

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Interview - Des Buckingham

Interview - Will Goodwin

Interview - Jon Brady

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[dickwalton1964]

So unless we are on a high the atmosphere will be s**t? I would aspire to be better than that, not every season will be fantastic but we have had good atmospheres in mid table seasons before. I very much doubt anyone will ever describe Salford as buzzing by the way.

Northampton were loud last night they are midtable and a bang average, rudimental third division team, so how do they manage it yet we can't?

To be fair, as agriculture as Northampton were they weren't sending me to sleep with slow pass after slow pass after slow pass between their defence and their goalkeeper.

 

[WEYellow]

I sat in the away end with Reading fans recently and I have to say Oxford were quiet. Reading fans were chanting about libraries.
Even in the 4-2 win recently Oxford were hardly vocal

You bloody what?!

 

[uptheus]

This is spot on.
The atmosphere is nothing short of embarrassing & I’m also certain it is currently the worst in this division and potentially even the one below.
And the argument that the football on display is the cause of this is just a lazy excuse, the atmosphere has been non-existent for a number of years now.
The point about not having many 18-25 year olds to lead the songs is bang on, we seem to be missing that demographic. We are in desperate need of a new fans group similar to the ultras, whereby people of that demographic can come together, create new songs, lead them in the ground and add some colour & life to the stadium Since we lost the ultras we have never come close to a good atmosphere at home unfortunately.
For me the atmosphere is one of the main issues the club has at the minute, it must affect performances on the pitch when it’s so quite and you can hear the groans for a missed placed pass & it also builds the apathy in the fan base. I would enjoy going to games way more if there was a good atmosphere regardless of the football and how entertaining that is.
Other fans can get behind their players regardless of performance on the pitch & it’s about time we did in my opinion. Just look at Northampton yesterday, they were still behind their team despite being on the back foot and not creating anything of their own doing all night

The thing is, even the ultras got it wrong at times e.g. they thought they owned what was sang and when, so if other fans wanted to start a song etc they got a stare or we kept hearing them going sushhhhh before they wanted to sing another one of their complicated songs. Like I’ve said before, we don’t even know which way around we should sing ‘come on you yellows’ followed by ‘yellows, yellows’ when we get a corner etc so we end up with a mixture of both with neither of them being passionate or loud enough! Get back to some of the basic songs e.g. ‘come on you yellows’ ‘United, United’ ‘we’ll keep the yellow flag flying high’ ‘’can you hear the Swindon (or team we’re playing) sing, no, no’ ‘going up, going up, going up’ ‘we live you Oxford we do’ ‘you make me happy when skies are grey’ ‘hello, hello we are the Oxford boys, hello hello’ etc etc

 

[MustardYellow]

Our last two home games have been a 4-2 win and a 2-2 draw, that’s hardly boring nil nils.

It’s not the football, we could be playing thrilling attacking football to go with those goals and our sanitised fan base wouldn’t make much noise.

Northampton fans made noise, they are as basic a football team as you will watch at this level, by your reckoning they shouldn’t of made a peep.

Can you name anything of note other than the goals, though? Something that will get people off their feet and keep them there? Last night we scored 2 goals but nothing else really happened. Once we got the 2nd vs Wigan we looked fairly comfortable, and again, other than the goals not much else happened. They weren't nil nils, but they weren't exactly exciting.

Point is, you can't rely on goals alone to get a crowd up. You need fight, intensity, drive - the crowd feeds off the energy on the pitch. We don't play in a way which builds momentum or anticipation. It also doesn't help that there isn't much belief in the way we play full stop.

Also, I wouldn't say Northampton made that much noise? The whole stadium was pretty quiet most of the game. They came to life around their goals as you'd expect.

 

[Bath Yellow]

Felt sorry for Cummings last night, he must have been nackered at the amount of back passes he had to deal with. If this is the way Buckingham wants to play i dread to think where we will be next season, it certainly wont be in the Championship.

 

[38yearsofpain]

Hi, long time member, first time poster here.
I would say it might have something to do with the way our team are playing football at the moment. Passing square for a few minutes before lumping a long ball forward repeatedly isn’t exactly entertaining or likely to get the crowd involved. Last night was the epitome of this. After a very bright start and scoring a great goal we honestly looked like we were prepared to sit back for the next 84 minutes! We are not capable of anything like that, we do, however, have the capability of scoring more goals, we just chose to play square ball. No wonder the crowd didn’t get involved. There’s no doubt individual calamities cost us all 3 points, but the tactics and decision to adopt this conservative (small c) approach is down to the manager. He appears to be getting away with it very lightly on here.

Welcome, please don't question Des, it's currently regarded as not good form. The point is well made and we as a collective we appear to be failing to learn game after game. Yes we are 6 undefeated but 8 points from 6 games. That is the form of mid table mediocrity and that is currently what we are. Fans are disengaged because it basically has limited excitement.
We need to reset because we have all seen this before and ultimately it ends in failure. It reminds me of playing under Atkins, winning games and top of the table but feeling after each match was a relegation battle.

 

[Osei Yaw]

That’s an incredibly linear view of the situation. Thousands and thousands of people have been going to games week in, week out for years and decades at a time, and I’m pretty sure they don’t do that solely because all they crave or care about is three points. They’re at the wrong club if that’s the only motivator. It’s really not about that.

I don’t enjoy being at games from the first minute these days. I didn’t enjoy the Wigan game last week even though we won 4-2, and I didn’t enjoy anything about last night even when we were winning on two separate occasions. I was talking to my mum on Sunday night and actually winced when I realised that I had not one, but two home games to attend this week. The football is flat, the atmosphere is flatter and it doesn’t feel like anybody who sits anywhere near me is any more arsed or inspired than I am at the moment. It’s a total apathy fest. It genuinely feels like almost nobody wants to be there at the moment. It’s people reporting for duty because “that’s what you do”.

I don’t know what the answer is. I don’t know whether anybody does, to be honest.

Your post struck a chord with me.

For me, the apathy set in last season when Robinson was left in post for way too long. He was done in August, but by October it was glaringly obvious he had to go. The fact that he still made it until roughly this time last year before being sacked (after what must be the worst run in the recent history of the club) told me we were in bad hands off the pitch. I was ground down then and there has been nothing that Tim or Grant have done since to make me feel confident in them running the show. I feel like all I am is a statistic on a spreadsheet somewhere to be called upon when it suits the club.

They may well be doing some good stuff behind the scenes but I'm none the wiser to what that is. What feels obvious from their lack of actions is that they have no idea about how to run a football club in a way that engages fans. Maybe they will get retail looking nice, but they have no intention of putting fans at the heart of things.

They got the appointment of Manning right in a lot of ways, but then showed themselves to be naive when he cleared off and took his own staff with him. They were fortunate that Manning brought his own staff with him in the first place. They've handled the appointment of Buckingham terribly and most people recognise that Buckingham has been left short of a backroom team. The Assistant Manager fiasco was a terrible one that played out publicly. We also know the analyst's name after Des gave it to The Dub, but obviously he hasn't come in straight away. We've had a new Head of Performance in for 2 weeks now but they haven't announced it yet, but then it begs the question of when did Harry Routledge actually leave and who had been covering the critical parts of that role? How long has Des had to contend with key staff missing, during the busiest period of the season and when he's just arrived? Where has the leadership been on that issue? Plus all the other rather important ones (like the stadium).

That's the thing that kills my enthusiasm. Buckingham may not end up being the right choice, but I would like to know he's been given everything he needs before assessing if he's good or not. I still don't think he has. And that to me is a big problem because if we simply end up getting rid of him (which would be an expensive mistake), we'll likely just move onto the next hire and repeat the same mistakes all over again. Given they left Robinson in charge for a much longer period of time then it seems obvious they'll give Buckingham the time too, which in my mind is absolutely the right thing to do. So if you're doing that, come out and back him. Get him a proper assistant and take the heat off him by sticking your neck out and communicating with fans. At the moment he is the face of the club and fans will pour over his every word.

Obviously it's right that Buckingham is scrutinised, every member of the club should be but it should also be relevant to your role at the club. Given that they hold two of the most influential roles at the club (more so than any manager) then it isn't right at all that Tim and Grant can get away with hiding until they have something they need or have to say. That's not effective leadership at all. You get respect by fronting up when things are going badly, not just when there is positive news to announce.

 

[Pieman]

The thing is, even the ultras got it wrong at times e.g. they thought they owned what was sang and when, so if other fans wanted to start a song etc they got a stare or we kept hearing them going sushhhhh before they wanted to sing another one of their complicated songs. Like I’ve said before, we don’t even know which way around we should sing ‘come on you yellows’ followed by ‘yellows, yellows’ when we get a corner etc so we end up with a mixture of both with neither of them being passionate or loud enough! Get back to some of the basic songs e.g. ‘come on you yellows’ ‘United, United’ ‘we’ll keep the yellow flag flying high’ ‘’can you hear the Swindon (or team we’re playing) sing, no, no’ ‘going up, going up, going up’ ‘we live you Oxford we do’ ‘you make me happy when skies are grey’ ‘hello, hello we are the Oxford boys, hello hello’ etc etc

Agreed, they got some things wrong, as everyone does at times but at least they gave us some direction & leadership, they also persevered when the singing did die down and lifted the whole places countless times. If we are to have any kind of atmosphere again we need a group who will do that, one or two individuals isn’t enough.
I also agree that whilst we are struggling to create any kind of atmosphere that we should go back to basics with songs, but that gets tedious quickly so we do need to come up with some new songs that everyone can get behind and enjoy. A few basic steps would improve our atmosphere no end, not that it can get any worse mind you.

 

[holdsteady]

Can you name anything of note other than the goals, though? Something that will get people off their feet and keep them there? Last night we scored 2 goals but nothing else really happened. Once we got the 2nd vs Wigan we looked fairly comfortable, and again, other than the goals not much else happened. They weren't nil nils, but they weren't exactly exciting.

Point is, you can't rely on goals alone to get a crowd up. You need fight, intensity, drive - the crowd feeds off the energy on the pitch. We don't play in a way which builds momentum or anticipation. It also doesn't help that there isn't much belief in the way we play full stop.

Also, I wouldn't say Northampton made that much noise? The whole stadium was pretty quiet most of the game. They came to life around their goals as you'd expect.

Goodrham chance where he tried to chip the goalie? Leigh put one just wide? A few balls whipped across.

We have a lot more boring games than that (and the Wigan game) every season.

 

[Eaststanding]

This is how we were looking when Sam played that weird backpass. In injury time. At 2-1! We had every opportunity to go 4-5-1 as they pushed up and chased the game. Just criminal.

View attachment 17907

Look where Greg Leigh is on the other flank, bent over exhausted high up the pitch from an overlap he shouldn't be making at this point. No safe option for Long to fall back on. Rubbish decision making by individuals cost us but we sure raised the stakes by not doing the basics.

Northampton commentator spent most of the game saying "Oxford hold the ball and frustrate us". Then at THIS moment "that's a bizarre pass back from Long from inside the cobblers half to his keeper who bombs it down field to no great purpose."

Lots of talk here about defensive problems but one other gripe I had last night is how often our attacking players chose speculative long shots over keeping the pressure up and forcing errors from our opponents defence. I know that without a bunch of worldies this season we'd be mid table but it's not a sustainable strategy and there must have been at least 5 times last night where we had them under pressure only to fire one over the bar and give them a chance to breathe and reset.

Small margins and overall much better performance in many ways. It's all about doing the basic stuff now to shift those margins in our favour.

The highlights don’t show this and I didn’t see the game but what happened that led to the goal after he made the back pass? Passing it back from there to kill time and help see out the game isn’t the end of the world?

 

[holdsteady]

To be fair, as agriculture as Northampton were they weren't sending me to sleep with slow pass after slow pass after slow pass between their defence and their goalkeeper.

I get you don’t like passing football baldy, you made that clear when Guardiolas Barcelona were giving your hero Fergusons team an embarrassing lesson in Europe when they met, but a hell of a lot of teams play it and it’s the most successful style of the moment so it’s hardly a surprise we try it. Whether a league one team can be successful trying it is another matter. But to try to completely blame the lack of atmosphere on that to score a point against it and the current manager constantly is over the top, anyone with their eyes open in the east and north stands will tell you it’s not the football that has caused the morgue like vibes, it runs far, far deeper than that.

Wouldn’t matter if we we’re winning six nil and having attacking all the time, a coupe near me barely clap when we score anyway before returning to chatting to their friends about the weekend plans or whatever.

 

[Barbadosyellow]

That's seven games this season against our nearest rivals (Reading, Wycombe, Cheltenham, Northampton) with not a single win. Coincidence or are we struggling with the pressure?

 

[Peterdev]

You bloody what?!

The only time I’ve done that, though. I’ve sat in all ends of the ground though.

 

[Theox07]

My concern is Brannagan, that looks like a nasty knee injury. I was really surprised he carried on which hopefully means it’s not as bad, but I’ve got a horrible feeling he could be out for a while, and losing him could leave a big void.

He was MOTM last night as he was the only one wanting to get on the ball and drive forwards/make something happen on a regular basis.

Thought Rodrigues was crap again. Just don’t notice him on the pitch. Just seems to prance around all the time. Murphy looked good again (oh yeah his contract terminates at the end of the season), but will be good to get the best out of him for the rest of the campaign.

Another player who slows it down when options are on is Brown. Personally I don’t think he’s changed from last season, it’s just that we were so poor last season that he was the best of a bad bunch, hence getting player of the season!! Also, Harris looked off it last night, didn’t offer much at all or do his customary shutting down etc.

Like I said earlier, I thought we played better last night as we seemed to want to play more on the front foot, but it didn’t look that way when the defence had the ball because there was lack of movement/players wanting the ball to feet which meant that the only option was to either go backwards or hit a hopeful long ball up front which mainly meant we lost retention of the ball.

We need a win against Orient Saturday, but can see that being a tougher game, and possibly without Brannagan. Hopefully having Moore and Stevens back will help.

Who do you expect brown to pass to when everyone is hiding Behind there marker he passes it to Bennet then Bennet will pass him it back his passes it brannagan , brannagan passes him it back no one moves for the ball in this team

 

[holdsteady]

That's seven games this season against our nearest rivals (Reading, Wycombe, Cheltenham, Northampton) with not a single win. Coincidence or are we struggling with the pressure?

Other than being nearish do we have any rivalry at all with Cheltenham? Other than the Wilder/Appleton promotion season 8 years ago do we have any real history with Northampton? Neither of those clubs have much feeling for us either.

Wycombe is slightly different as it’s their cup final so even though it means nothing to us they go up a gear, so you could have a point there, but the Reading games were damp squibs which never took off, don’t think those games against those teams were anything more than par for the course this season really, we are just not as good as our early results led people to believe and we overachieved, still loads of work to be done.

On a side note I think we would struggle to get an atmosphere against Swindon at the moment, just not got the fanbase for it.

 

[m]

That's seven games this season against our nearest rivals (Reading, Wycombe, Cheltenham, Northampton) with not a single win. Coincidence or are we struggling with the pressure?

That's an interesting point.

 

[bazzer9461]

I sat in the away end with Reading fans recently and I have to say Oxford were quiet. Reading fans were chanting about libraries.
Even in the 4-2 win recently Oxford were hardly vocal

I think at lot of this quietness from the faithful at home is down to how the club are playing, people say it’s the modern game but to be playing passes in and around your defence and goalkeeping area for a minimum of double figures without trying to progress further up the pitch and do that rare thing at OUFC and attack.

It gets very boring when you don’t see players using their skills to try and get further up the pitch.

I too am or the aged group of fans who have seen the great times regarding OUFC and know no mobile phones in sight but a large group of fans congregating outside the Rumbelows shop window post game and if you were lucky get to the Radio Rentals shop for similar. Or even squinting at someone’s 20’ tv through their net curtain at the football focus or world of sport results service.

But dam we need to up our game as we’re are no where near a top 30 club.

I will still give Des the summer window to see what can be done and if he can succeed with his transfer window. But is it doesn’t work then sorry no sentiment he has to go. Football at OUFC is starting to get very boring now and people are getting sick of it.

March the 7th fans forum could be very interesting although I suspect uncle Timmy will try and deflect all this criticism with the news of the plans being presented to Cherwell District Council, which if so the time it will take for the planning permission to be granted or the worst possible position and a no .

With the time delay that seems to be growing over the plans submitted it will be a ground share but I will not get a season ticket to for Adams Park and that shithole or even Stadium MK although a hotdog from ikea could be an attraction to go. I won’t be giving any of my money to OUFC if we’re ground sharing.

Finally I hope the chuckle brothers go and go soon

 

[MJB]

Your post struck a chord with me.

For me, the apathy set in last season when Robinson was left in post for way too long. He was done in August, but by October it was glaringly obvious he had to go. The fact that he still made it until roughly this time last year before being sacked (after what must be the worst run in the recent history of the club) told me we were in bad hands off the pitch. I was ground down then and there has been nothing that Tim or Grant have done since to make me feel confident in them running the show. I feel like all I am is a statistic on a spreadsheet somewhere to be called upon when it suits the club.

They may well be doing some good stuff behind the scenes but I'm none the wiser to what that is. What feels obvious from their lack of actions is that they have no idea about how to run a football club in a way that engages fans. Maybe they will get retail looking nice, but they have no intention of putting fans at the heart of things.

They got the appointment of Manning right in a lot of ways, but then showed themselves to be naive when he cleared off and took his own staff with him. They were fortunate that Manning brought his own staff with him in the first place. They've handled the appointment of Buckingham terribly and most people recognise that Buckingham has been left short of a backroom team. The Assistant Manager fiasco was a terrible one that played out publicly. We also know the analyst's name after Des gave it to The Dub, but obviously he hasn't come in straight away. We've had a new Head of Performance in for 2 weeks now but they haven't announced it yet, but then it begs the question of when did Harry Routledge actually leave and who had been covering the critical parts of that role? How long has Des had to contend with key staff missing, during the busiest period of the season and when he's just arrived? Where has the leadership been on that issue? Plus all the other rather important ones (like the stadium).

That's the thing that kills my enthusiasm. Buckingham may not end up being the right choice, but I would like to know he's been given everything he needs before assessing if he's good or not. I still don't think he has. And that to me is a big problem because if we simply end up getting rid of him (which would be an expensive mistake), we'll likely just move onto the next hire and repeat the same mistakes all over again. Given they left Robinson in charge for a much longer period of time then it seems obvious they'll give Buckingham the time too, which in my mind is absolutely the right thing to do. So if you're doing that, come out and back him. Get him a proper assistant and take the heat off him by sticking your neck out and communicating with fans. At the moment he is the face of the club and fans will pour over his every word.

Obviously it's right that Buckingham is scrutinised, every member of the club should be but it should also be relevant to your role at the club. Given that they hold two of the most influential roles at the club (more so than any manager) then it isn't right at all that Tim and Grant can get away with hiding until they have something they need or have to say. That's not effective leadership at all. You get respect by fronting up when things are going badly, not just when there is positive news to announce.

The absolutely baffling thing is that so many things are massively in our favour for there to be a positive feeling amongst the fans and the club more generally.

We're as close as we've ever been to potentially leaving behind a stadium that virtually everyone hates
We've got the deepest potential pockets in our history with billionaire backers
We're in the play-off places and have massively turned around last year's car crash of a season
We've bought in a number of highly rated players and reverted back to something resembling a productive trading model
Crowds are generally on the up

That our senior management team have therefore managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in terms of how the mood of the fanbase is currently, is remarkable. Last night's game was therefore an excellent microcosm of the club generally.

 

[dickwalton1964]

I get you don’t like passing football baldy, you made that clear when Guardiolas Barcelona were giving your hero Fergusons team an embarrassing lesson in Europe when they met, but a hell of a lot of teams play it and it’s the most successful style of the moment so it’s hardly a surprise we try it. Whether a league one team can be successful trying it is another matter. But to try to completely blame the lack of atmosphere on that to score a point against it and the current manager constantly is over the top, anyone with their eyes open in the east and north stands will tell you it’s not the football that has caused the morgue like vibes, it runs far, far deeper than that.

Wouldn’t matter if we we’re winning six nil and having attacking all the time, a coupe near me barely clap when we score anyway before returning to chatting to their friends about the weekend plans or whatever.

Passing football in the right areas is a sight to behold. Crisp, probing, forward passes from defence to midfield is good to watch. Passing back to the keeper, to rebuild, has a place too. The going nowhere passing between our keeper and back five last night though is just bewildering. Our defenders aren't even looking forwards, their body shape is instinctively turned towards Cumming - Cumming is the main man in that triangle. If he was playing 30 yards out and the team were up the pitch it wouldn't be so bad but he's the outlet on the edge of his 6 yard box. All wrong and if you want to watch that, good luck to you.

 

[RgYellows]

You get respect by fronting up when things are going badly, not just when there is positive news to announce.

to be fair, TW failed to deliver a Fans Forum even in Autumn when the main topics would have been how great we were and how nice the plans looked. We can’t accuse him of being a visible presence during the good times.

You also said retail looked nice, but you should have said “record setting”.

Otherwise, excellent assessment of the situation from my point of view as well.