Corporate_Clive
Well-known member
- Joined
- 30 Dec 2017
- Messages
- 1,109
I know for a fact that Mr Eales's father reads this forum and reports back to his son. DE gets his love of football from his father.
don’t quote him on it ?I know for a fact that Mr Eales's father reads this forum and reports back to his son. DE gets his love of football from his father.
Thanks Morris. I was awaiting Mr Beasley's summary before commenting, but your first hand report has cheered me up somewhat.
I don't get to many games. I was at Scunthorpe early season (0-1 defeat but decent show from Oxford), at Bury (thrashed by a very poor team) and at Rochdale (embarrassing lack of ambition by us). The Wigan capitulation was bound to attract doom and gloom, but my overall sense is not that we are relegation fodder.
We are, however, not good enough as a squad, Pep is clearly out of his depth as a manager and post-match mouthpiece, and as for Mr Eales, well, where is he and what are his intentions? Plenty to be concerned about, certainly. I'm not expecting much from the January transfer window and anticipate a finish in the mid-table doldrums.
If Mr Eales cannot find an investment partner before next season, we might end up threadbare 2018/19 and a slide towards L2 might indeed happen. Given the positivity around the club under Mr Appleton, that would be disappointing.
I think another source of current negativity that the doom-mongers have lost sight of is that, looking at the last seven games, we've have a tough set of fixtures and have simply lost the games you would realistically expect a mid-table team to: two of the top three at home and a perennial top-six team (and one of the largest clubs in the division) away. There's plenty of cause for concern (injuries, the Wigan capitulation and the recent lack of wins) but we're not in as bad form as some are making out: it's three defeats in seven, five in ten, five in fifteen.
b****r.Corporate_Clive: please learn to use the quote function. It's doing my head in!
Bazzer, I don’t believe for 2 minutes we will be relegated this season. We also won’t be pushing for promotion anytime soon. We are a mid table team and I’d say this transfer window is more important for next season than this season.
You keep banging on about how awful we were yesterday but with all due respect you weren’t there so I’m not sure how you can comment on the performance of the team. Radio Oxford don’t always paint a full reflection of a game. Ive been to games where we have been poor but if you had listened to radio Oxford you would of thought it was a good game and vice versa.
Nothing wrong with it if used correctly. Not entirely sure what @Corporate_Clive is doing!Not sure I like this new quote feature
Testing testing testingNothing wrong with it if used correctly. Not entirely sure what @Corporate_Clive is doing!
Good lord some of the comments on here.
It's astonishing how short a memory some people have. Appleton needed his first season, with a squad that he inherited, with an injury crisis, to get everything together. Pep will need the same. If by the final 10 games of the year, we are still struggling, it is right that a conversation is had in the summer about a change of leadership. For all the people wanted Pep out - I'm telling you it will only hurt us in the long run. The only excusable reason for a manager sacking mid-season is a slide towards relegation, which we are nowhere near. The chaos it causes is immense - look at how Appleton's departure hurt our recruitment. I've been at clubs where it has happened mid-season, it damages so many aspects of a football club. Were we in the bottom four, I'd say it was worth the risk, but we are 12th.
If you still want him out on the last day of the season, that's your call, and it would be sensible time for a change if one was needed.
Of course you want to see better results, everyone does. But a change of manager is a massive gamble that could really hurt us. Give Pep the year (Assuming things don't get a lot worse) and judge him in May.
Nothing wrong with it if used correctly. Not entirely sure what @Corporate_Clive is doing!
Oh do put up a link - I put that text into Google and the only hit it gives is back here. You can read the most popular Bradford forum here
We hardly warrant a mention - they are more worried about how they are going to do without Wyke, who they need in January and whether their increased budget wil be used to strengthen.
From a stats perspective Bradford have had more shots this season than Oxford but fewer on target. However their conversion rate is higher. Conclusion.... Bloody well shoot! Statistically Goalkeepers at L1 level will make mistakes especially if weather or pitch are crap.Let's put a bit of perspective on Saturdays game. I thought we played some good football going forward and caused Bradford some problems but the defence was a bit of a shambles. Bradford are 5th in the table and are there on merit and we gave them a game in the second half. I have some sympathy for Pep as he has been unable to play his strongest team for any length of time. As soon as we get some good results and some consistency it's disrupted by injury to key players; Nelson, Riberio, Hall, Obika, van Keshe'll etc and even yesterday his plans were affected by Rothwell's injury. Personally I think we are only 2 or 3 players away from being a good team which will be addressed when Raglan and Ivo are fit and playing along with Hall. It was interesting to hear Pep say he has 4 fit strikers to choose from for the first time this season. That to me says it all.