Home Match Day Thread 03/02/2024 L1: OUFC v Reading

[Carpy]

POST-MATCH PACK

Post Match Discussion

Interview - Des Buckingham

Interview - Cam Brannagan

Interview - Reading manager

Match Highlights

Match Report

Ref Watch

Fans View

 

[Jster]

Smyth has a knock.

 

[Teddydee1980]

Some silliness spoken on the game so far. Far from perfect, but a disappointing draw against a side that largely cancelled us out isnt sacking worthy imo.

I think Des is getting less slack due to the view that he is inexperienced in the league. No way people would be asking for his head if he had previous at this level.

1 transfer window, some promising signings (and players of note at this level), plus the injuries and squad he inherited. Playing with a 4th choice RB and an 11 bereft of pace bar an unfit Burey.

Stings to hear the jibes from Reading but I know which club has better prospects right now.

The Manning departure has probably cost us this season, the recruitment of his replacement and the support from the board has exacerbated it...but is that on Des?

 

[unification]

And yet somehow he’s still not been picked up by any of the clubs who’ve sacked their managers recently. Could it be that he wants Championship football not League One.

Add to that, did he even apply or, if so, was he even interviewed?

Fans can say ‘I wAnTeD eUsTaCE’ all they want. If he didn’t want to come here, it’s a moot point.

 

[DannyW]

People talking up the players that are allegedly coming back from injury, please, have a day off!

You can have any player you like in the Xl but if you cannot be disciplined without the ball and continue to concede goals at the rate that we do, it will not matter who plays.

While we are talking players though, Goodwin won’t start. He’s not had a full days training since he’s been here. Matete played his first minutes in months today and will be on the bench, Murphy probably won’t even travel and Bodin remains touch and go (at best). Oh, don’t worry though, Sam Long will be back to steady the ship.

Harris will be up front, Goodrham and Burey will start, MM and Brannagan will be in midfield. Rinse and repeat.

If your right about the players not being available, it seems my choice of my mushroom as my Avatar is the representation of where my relationship with the club is.

 

[uptheus]

To the people on here questioning whether they’ll renew season tickets next season…have a word with yourself will ya?!
Through thick and thin?
Or just the nice bits because the other bits are a bit nasty…F***s sake.

I’ve been going for 45+ years, but it’s boring and same old stuff. And we never learn.

Is it so hard to get a team to play football for 90mins. See wingers going down the wings, fullbacks overlapping, forwards getting on the end of crosses, midfielders shooting, defenders defending and goalkeepers making great saves etc!

We go to be entertained. Yes, they’ll be better teams that come here, but we dig in, make a fist of it. If we come away from the ground and have lost, but see that the players/team have given it a good go, then we hold our hands up and say fair enough, but we’ve seen too often where we don’t get everything off of a player/team, like 2nd half today.

Football’s dying in my eyes with all the bullshit e.g. dark arts, play acting, game management (water breaks), analysis, pretending to be injured and bloody VAR (luckily we haven’t got that)

 

[dickwalton1964]

Some silliness spoken on the game so far. Far from perfect, but a disappointing draw against a side that largely cancelled us out isnt sacking worthy imo.

I think Des is getting less slack due to the view that he is inexperienced in the league. No way people would be asking for his head if he had previous at this level.

1 transfer window, some promising signings (and players of note at this level), plus the injuries and squad he inherited. Playing with a 4th choice RB and an 11 bereft of pace bar an unfit Burey.

Stings to hear the jibes from Reading but I know which club has better prospects right now.

The Manning departure has probably cost us this season, the recruitment of his replacement and the support from the board has exacerbated it...but is that on Des?

‘Is that on Des’ ? What’s that mean ? He accepted the job, he could always have said no. I just don’t get this lack of support from the board. £400,000 on Goodwin and championship players like Burey and Metete coming in. Most fans are united in it being one of the better windows. Yes, we’ve had some bad luck with injuries but the tools are there to do the job.

 

[Followtheox1]

Smyth has a knock.

Let me guess, it's a minor knock but we won't see him for about six weeks!

 

[uptheus]

Why do we bother looking at stats, mean nothing, we could have 99.9* not score, they have one shot and score 3pts. How many times has this happened

About 99.9% of the time

 

[SirAndyOfCrosby]

Two days after the Transfer Window closes and we’re still trying to score a goal by bringing on the work experience lad.

Generous. He looks like he's won a competion to be there. Lethargic, disorientated, the anticipation of a sloth. Completely and utterly out of his depth. Hopeless.

And there absolutely needs to be significant blame laden on the recruitment for allowing him to be our only forward option off the bench. One whole month to sign (on top of Goodwin) even a bog standard workhorse on loan to do a job - rather than bringing on someone who simply shouldn't be there.

A proper centre forward option off the bench may well have yielded (at least) 5 additional points from the last 4 games.

It's negligent. And no amount of Matete signings can mask it. You can keep telling me Ed Waldron is a hero. This is a f**k up. And it's cost us massively.

As an aside, it's remarkable that this thread is punctuated with posters who seem to agree with the notion that GO'D is not up to it, but have spent the last 4 and half weeks vehemently arguing that we didn't need to do anything about it in the window.

And I've said it before, but it's unfair on those players literally doing all they can - Brannagan, Leigh, Rodrigues, Brown - some of which are now becoming scapegoats for the shoddy recruitment that, if done properly, would have put in place the players to properly support them.

We're not a million miles off, but this blind spot at the top end - and it's a blind spot among management and fans alike - is proving our downfall.

 

[werthersoriginal]

Generous. He looks like he's won a competion to be there. Lethargic, disorientated, the anticipation of a sloth. Completely and utterly out of his depth. Hopeless.

And there absolutely needs to be significant blame laden on the recruitment for allowing him to be our only forward option off the bench. One whole month to sign (on top of Goodwin) even a bog standard workhorse on loan to do a job - rather than bringing on someone who simply shouldn't be there.

A proper centre forward option off the bench may well have yielded (at least) 5 additional points from the last 4 games.

It's negligent. And no amount of Matete signings can mask it. You can keep telling me Ed Waldron is a hero. This is a f**k up. And it's cost us massively.

As an aside, it's remarkable that this thread is punctuated with posters who seem to agree with the notion that GO'D is not up to it, but have spent the last 4 and half weeks vehemently arguing that we didn't need to do anything about it in the window.

And I've said it before, but it's unfair on those players literally doing all they can - Brannagan, Leigh, Rodrigues, Brown - some of which are now becoming scapegoats for the shoddy recruitment that, if done properly, would have put in place the players to properly support them.

We're not a million miles off, but this blind spot at the top end - and it's a blind spot among management and fans alike - is proving our downfall.

I think your point is fair but I’m not sure it affected the result today. We hardly got the ball in their area in the second half.

 

[unification]

Getting a manager in with no experience of managing a team in England was an enormous risk.

Tell me how many matches Neil Collins managed in England prior to joining Barnsley. It’s not uncommon to sign managers with no experience. Burton’s Martin Paterson is in his first managerial role and Lincoln have recruited a manager from the youth set up at Leeds with zero EFL experience.

This view that DB is some kind of country bumpkin who has wandered in from a league in India is a weird one. He would have been coached in the same style as Manning and has shown plenty of competence in league and international management. You don’t fall under the City Group umbrella without something about you.

I get it isn’t going for him right now and I was frustrated as anyone that we just didn’t go for it enough today (like a number of Manning performances too) but this treatment of him as some sort of tactical vacuum and overpromoted local boy isn’t born out by the evidence of his previous jobs.

Things need to improve but to me it was never going to be a season where we got promoted this season. The baggage Robinson has left behind still needs clearing.

 

[Northernyellow]

A lot of the posts on here are borderline bonkers. It's not just about one game, you know! Here we go ..1. Was KR a disaster? Generally no, he was really good for the first 3-4 years. But he completely lost the plot in the last 12 months, mostly because he's a bit thick and couldn't cope with having to follow a 'process' instead of having his mates guffawing at all his jokes and phoning up his favourite agents...2. Was Manning any good? Yes, he did a great job tidying up KR's mess, but left some obvious gaps...3. Did Manning run away ? Yes, probably because he knew we wouldn't get promoted and he doesn't really believe in himself despite all the boring management-speak..4. Would Manning have got us promoted? Almost certainly not- see answer (3)...4. Is Buckingham a poor hire? Who knows, but he is really well rated in football 'circles', so he'll probably work out fine..5. Will we get promoted this season? Probably not. The squad is too weak...6. Are the Board supportive? Err, yes. Very much so. They are building us a £100M+ stadium and have given our managers very significant financial support in the last 2+ years. I think that's all I have to say for now! A bit of perspective always helps imo!

 

[greatunclekip]

Generous. He looks like he's won a competion to be there. Lethargic, disorientated, the anticipation of a sloth. Completely and utterly out of his depth. Hopeless.

And there absolutely needs to be significant blame laden on the recruitment for allowing him to be our only forward option off the bench. One whole month to sign (on top of Goodwin) even a bog standard workhorse on loan to do a job - rather than bringing on someone who simply shouldn't be there.

A proper centre forward option off the bench may well have yielded (at least) 5 additional points from the last 4 games.

It's negligent. And no amount of Matete signings can mask it. You can keep telling me Ed Waldron is a hero. This is a f**k up. And it's cost us massively.

As an aside, it's remarkable that this thread is punctuated with posters who seem to agree with the notion that GO'D is not up to it, but have spent the last 4 and half weeks vehemently arguing that we didn't need to do anything about it in the window.

And I've said it before, but it's unfair on those players literally doing all they can - Brannagan, Leigh, Rodrigues, Brown - some of which are now becoming scapegoats for the shoddy recruitment that, if done properly, would have put in place the players to properly support them.

We're not a million miles off, but this blind spot at the top end - and it's a blind spot among management and fans alike - is proving our downfall.

Des, to his credit, repeatedly stated he wanted a striker (on top of Goodwin). This was failed to be delivered.

It was, and is, madness..

 

[dickwalton1964]

Tell me how many matches Neil Collins managed in England prior to joining Barnsley. It’s not uncommon to sign managers with no experience. Burton’s Martin Paterson is in his first managerial role and Lincoln have recruited a manager from the youth set up at Leeds with zero EFL experience.

This view that DB is some kind of country bumpkin who has wandered in from a league in India is a weird one. He would have been coached in the same style as Manning and has shown plenty of competence in league and international management. You don’t fall under the City Group umbrella without something about you.

I get it isn’t going for him right now and I was frustrated as anyone that we just didn’t go for it enough today (like a number of Manning performances too) but this treatment of him as some sort of tactical vacuum and overpromoted local boy isn’t born out by the evidence of his previous jobs.

Things need to improve but to me it was never going to be a season where we got promoted this season. The baggage Robinson has left behind still needs clearing.

Weakest league L1, probably in a generation - certainly in my recent memory. Sitting clear second in November, a time scale when the league has settled down and you expect current positions to be a reasonable guide as to how the rest of the season might go. I’ve not seen a stand out side in the entire division, in fact I can’t recall who but the best side I’ve seen at ours over 90 minutes was a team in the bottom half and one we beat on the day/night - Charlton maybe ? Exeter possibly. To say we could never get promoted and there was hangover from KR ? Really ? What’s the hangover ? Elliott Moore, who he signed, has been our stand out player. McGuane, who he signed, has been not far behind (certainly early season), Cairon Brown, who he signed, has been exceptional bar the last two or three games. There’s a bit of dead wood left - Henry, Murphy etc - but come on ! There’s not masses of Robinson finger prints left on this side bar the ones I mention who have been among our top five players over the season.

 

[Northernyellow]

A lot of the posts on here are borderline bonkers. It's not just about one game, you know! Here we go ..1. Was KR a disaster? Generally no, he was really good for the first 3-4 years. But he completely lost the plot in the last 12 months, mostly because he's a bit thick and couldn't cope with having to follow a 'process' instead of having his mates guffawing at all his jokes and phoning up his favourite agents...2. Was Manning any good? Yes, he did a great job tidying up KR's mess, but left some obvious gaps...3. Did Manning run away ? Yes, probably because he knew we wouldn't get promoted and he doesn't really believe in himself despite all the boring management-speak..4. Would Manning have got us promoted? Almost certainly not- see answer (3)...4. Is Buckingham a poor hire? Who knows, but he is really well rated in football 'circles', so he'll probably work out fine..5. Will we get promoted this season? Probably not. The squad is too weak...6. Are the Board supportive? Err, yes. Very much so. They are building us a £100M+ stadium and have given our managers very significant financial support in the last 2+ years. I think that's all I have to say for now! A bit of perspective always helps imo!

PS. For clarity, I am almost certain Manning would not have got us promoted this season. He knew that. And that's why he skipped off. He doesn't actually believe in himself despite all the BS he spouted. Buckingham is really well rated in football 'circles'. The notion that he he got the gig because he's from Oxford and/or because he was the 'cheap' option is entirely incorrect!

 

[dickwalton1964]

PS. For clarity, I am almost certain Manning would not have got us promoted this season. He knew that. And that's why he skipped off. He doesn't actually believe in himself despite all the BS he spouted. Buckingham is really well rated in football 'circles'. The notion that he he got the gig because he's from Oxford and/or because he was the 'cheap' option is entirely incorrect!

How do you know ? I undoubtedly think the Oxford connection plays, at the very least, a small part. I’m not sure we start our recruitment process in Mumbai if their manager at the time was from the Outer Hebrides for example.

 

[Northernyellow]

How do you know ? I undoubtedly think the Oxford connection plays, at the very least, a small part. I’m not sure we start our recruitment process in Mumbai if their manager at the time was from the Outer Hebrides for example.

I'm not ITK, but it is highly, highly unlikely that he got the job because he grew up in Cowley! He may/may not work out. But he is really well regarded in English football. Other clubs were very interested in him. At the risk of being vv boring, City Football Group (and I hate what they represent btw) do not hand out jobs for a laugh. He is really rated.

 

[JimSmith2]

Really rated on the basis of what? Being successful with just turning very poor teams into poor teams and most recently Mumbai City who are probably now Conference North/South standard at best and attracting attendances of a few thousand!

The bloke has absolutely no EFL experience. WTF.

Who else was interested in him? Just Charlton?!

Such a mystifying appointment for me with it being no surprise that, from Manning’s tremendous turnaround of the club taking it to 2nd in the league, since his departure it has been in freefall now to 7th and very soon mid-table obscurity at best and season over.
Fortunately, enough points were accumulated under Manning for relegation not to be a possibility. It might turn out that he has saved the club from relegation two seasons in a row.

 

[Steve Gilbert]

Just got in from work and catching up on this thread.
I watched the game and thought it was a poor game but we were getting on top of them but weren’t taking our chances or trying one too many passes when we should have had a shot. Like Brannagan said, we didn’t take advantage of the wind in the 2nd half and you leave yourself vulnerable if you keep wasting chances.
Reading never really threatened and it was a stupid goal to concede.

I thought Dale looked bright when he came on and will be a key signing.

Some of the comments calling for Des’s head are way OTT though. The guy can’t catch a break when it comes back to players getting injured (Negru now injured again).

He has been on the back foot since he came in due to the amount of injuries we have and also the shambles that has gone on with regards to not getting more staff in to help him.

Will we go up? Doubtful, would we have gone up if Manning had stayed? Doubtful IMO.

Manning was going to need 2-3 transfer windows to turn the squad around after KR left, Des has come in and will need 2-3 windows to get his players in. He has pretty much said that the squad of players he has doesn’t totally suit the way he wants to play.

I still think we will be in the top 8 this season though.

 

[Leysboy]

He was my choice too

Me too