Home Match Day Thread 17/08/21 L1: OUFC v Crewe Alexandra

[FatOldSun]

From watching the extended highlights, you would think Agyei was our best player as he was involved in most of the action. All Taylor did was miss a cross that I'm sure Winnall would have tapped in.

 

[bazzer9461]

I guess you’d love your boss over looking your shoulder and criticising everything you do and I bet you wouldn’t perform as well.

You need 5-10 games on the trot to get up to match fitness and in tune with your colleagues.

If Henry, Taylor, Bodin, Callum make mistakes Karl claps his hands and gees them up, not throw his toys out of the pram in frustration.

Callum?

 

[Mad Dog]

We've made the play offs 2 seasons running with him leading the line and again he is involved in 1 goal every 2 games, a stat many strikers don't reach. The other 10 positions equally have an impact such as Easty's awful start to last season.

I also remember him doing well against top sides in his 1st season, but last year very few the whole squad did well against the top sides.

I don’t think the problem is weather he can lead the line, it’s the overall tactics and style of play, that really dictates how influential he is in games.

He was feeding off scraps last night, and there have been plenty of games when that’s been the case.

Just like any striker who leads the line, our attacking play should be tailored to their strengths.

Personally, as much as I’m a fan of Taylor, Agyei isn’t gonna be played through the middle by the looks of it, and who knows how fit or sharp Winnall will ever be, so I think we need another striker, to give us more options in the middle.

 

[Foley]

You haven't read a word I've posted above have you? I haven't criticised Taylor I've praised him. Look! See!

Sorry?
I have read what you said. You said he does well against the weaker defences and that wasn't good enough last season, and whether he is good enough depends on the ambition we have.
You haven't read my response. I suggested that if we want to go up our goals conceded was the big problem.

 

[Oxfordpete]

Any news on the injured players ??

 

[Foley]

One real disappointment to me yesterday was the (lack of) quality in the dead balls.
9 corners and we hardly caused any danger.
Last season out dead balls seemed to really improve but I haven't been impressed this season yet.
Early days yet and things could improve ( and will have to)

 

[tonyw]

We don't play that way. Taylor thrives off low crosses but what we delivered last night was mainly long high ones to the far post, god knows why. Shape and structure disappeared pretty fast with the injuries so I think just take the points and move on.

I was thinking the same myself.

Henry was delivering some terrific whipped crosses on Saturday, so it's not a lack of form on his part - it seems they were purposely trying to balloon deep crosses beyond the back post. No idea why, because it didn't work, and the penalty came directly from one time when Agyei (who may not have gotten the memo) pinged one into the mixer.

 

[Sarge]

One real disappointment to me yesterday was the (lack of) quality in the dead balls.
9 corners and we hardly caused any danger.
Last season out dead balls seemed to really improve but I haven't been impressed this season yet.
Early days yet and things could improve ( and will have to)

agree ... though Forde, who seems to be one of , if not the, best set piece or at least FK takers at the club, is out at the moment

 

[Wandering Yellow]

The year is 2029, Oxford fans fiercely debate if Dan Agyei did enough in his testimonial, after being a bit part player for the previous 10 seasons.

 

[oufc1991]

Last night we got the job done I would be happy playing like that most weeks if it gives us 3 points I don’t think the injury’s helped tbf i didn’t think the atmosphere last night was as good as Saturdays I know there wasn’t as many people last night but seemed abit flat

 

[Jason N]

One real disappointment to me yesterday was the (lack of) quality in the dead balls.
9 corners and we hardly caused any danger.
Last season out dead balls seemed to really improve but I haven't been impressed this season yet.
Early days yet and things could improve ( and will have to)

I thought Seddons set pieces were very good against Cambridge, he took most of the corners and indirect free kicks. We rarely tend to shoot from freekicks anymore. I really miss the days when we had a dead ball specialist. I think Maguire may have been the last.

 

[QR]

Sorry?
I have read what you said. You said he does well against the weaker defences and that wasn't good enough last season, and whether he is good enough depends on the ambition we have.
You haven't read my response. I suggested that if we want to go up our goals conceded was the big problem.

If you are going to try and put words in my mouth I'd rather you say I said 'Taylor is 5' 9" not 6' 4" '. OK.

 

[Osei Yaw]

One real disappointment to me yesterday was the (lack of) quality in the dead balls.
9 corners and we hardly caused any danger.
Last season out dead balls seemed to really improve but I haven't been impressed this season yet.
Early days yet and things could improve ( and will have to)

I thought our set piece delivery was actually really good, Sedden in particular put in some great balls. It was noticeable that Crewe regularly had every single player back to defend them though, so it's no wonder we didn't make more of them.

 

[Marked Ox]

I don’t think the problem is weather he can lead the line, it’s the overall tactics and style of play, that really dictates how influential he is in games.

He was feeding off scraps last night, and there have been plenty of games when that’s been the case.

Just like any striker who leads the line, our attacking play should be tailored to their strengths.

Personally, as much as I’m a fan of Taylor, Agyei isn’t gonna be played through the middle by the looks of it, and who knows how fit or sharp Winnall will ever be, so I think we need another striker, to give us more options in the middle.

I agree that he can be isolated and less influential in some games but that is a team issue (as you say tactics/style of play) rather than a Matty Taylor issue.

 

[IsleofWightYellow]

This is it for me. I do think it’s weird how, as a forum, people generally don’t hold back from sticking the boot in (sometimes pretty unreasonably), but for some reason are willing to bend over backwards to excuse poor performance after poor performance from Agyei. He’s not the first player to have been (justifiably) dug out by KR and hes not the first player to be asked to play slightly out of position, and he certainly won’t be the last. But there are still minimum standards of tenacity and urgency that players should be expected to reach, and he just does not hit them.

And it’s as you say - he is so nearly there. He’s got everything. Everyone wants to see him just put in that 10% more and be the player we see in only one or two flashes a game. But he’s had two years to show that now and he just hasn’t.

Poor performance after poor performance? I can remember maybe two or three bad performances from him out of his last 10-15, and far more above average and even excellent ones. And as soon as he does anything wrong there’s multiple posts on here saying that Karl was right all along. You don’t get that when many other players have a slightly under-par game, out of position.

People are far more likely to excuse poor performances from Sam Winnall, he does absolutely nothing for game after game, less than nothing in fact, and then he has one half-decent game and people say ‘ah, he could still come good for us’ while Dan Ageyi, years younger, is written off. I don’t see Sam Winnall being asked to play on the wing either, despite it being apparently what everyone has to do. I wonder how he would do there?

How about Dan gets one full game up front to see how he does - he absolutely bossed Portsmouth’s CBs and didn’t look disinterested then, but he hasn’t been given many chances centrally since then. Sam Winnall will get many more though and everyone will be fine with it. Strange.

 

[NC2U]

Poor performance after poor performance? I can remember maybe two or three bad performances from him out of his last 10-15, and far more above average and even excellent ones. And as soon as he does anything wrong there’s multiple posts on here saying that Karl was right all along. You don’t get that when many other players have a slightly under-par game, out of position.

People are far more likely to excuse poor performances from Sam Winnall, he does absolutely nothing for game after game, less than nothing in fact, and then he has one half-decent game and people say ‘ah, he could still come good for us’ while Dan Ageyi, years younger, is written off. I don’t see Sam Winnall being asked to play on the wing either, despite it being apparently what everyone has to do. I wonder how he would do there?

How about Dan gets one full game up front to see how he does - he absolutely bossed Portsmouth’s CBs and didn’t look disinterested then, but he hasn’t been given many chances centrally since then. Sam Winnall will get many more though and everyone will be fine with it. Strange.

Summed up perfectly

 

[Yellowarmy]

Poor performance after poor performance? I can remember maybe two or three bad performances from him out of his last 10-15, and far more above average and even excellent ones. And as soon as he does anything wrong there’s multiple posts on here saying that Karl was right all along. You don’t get that when many other players have a slightly under-par game, out of position.

People are far more likely to excuse poor performances from Sam Winnall, he does absolutely nothing for game after game, less than nothing in fact, and then he has one half-decent game and people say ‘ah, he could still come good for us’ while Dan Ageyi, years younger, is written off. I don’t see Sam Winnall being asked to play on the wing either, despite it being apparently what everyone has to do. I wonder how he would do there?

How about Dan gets one full game up front to see how he does - he absolutely bossed Portsmouth’s CBs and didn’t look disinterested then, but he hasn’t been given many chances centrally since then. Sam Winnall will get many more though and everyone will be fine with it. Strange.

I've always liked ageyi but he's in the last year of a 3 year deal. Time is running out. Maybe the squad place is better placed in someone else's shoes. We only have 3 forward slots. All 3 need to be decent.

 

[OUFC91]

This was obviously a less fluid performance than against Charlton but it's to be expected with the changes and our current injury issues.

For me I think it's important that if we have a player like a Bodin/Sykes/Henry on one side then for us to have the right balance we need a pacey winger (Williams/Holland/Whyte) on the other to really stretch teams. Without that we didn't really break the lines enough and too many of our balls into the box were from deeper and easily dealt with by their centre halves. I know KR didn't really have this as an option after Holland came off but just an observation.

How good is it to have Cam and Gorrin back to their best. I think I forgot how good Cam was after his issues last year but he is going to be a huge player for us this season if we're going to push on for promotion. I thought McGuane would be a big player for us this season but struggling to see him getting too much game time at the minute with how our midfield 3 are playing. What an option to have on the bench though.

It's going to be interesting to see if KR can get someone in short term to help us out defensively. Surely there are some youngsters at prem clubs who would benefit from being in and around the first team squad.

I was interested to see how people would react to Dan's performance. For me he just lacks the football intelligence to be a regular starter for a team pushing for the league 1 play offs. He clearly has the raw ability but regularly when he has time on the ball he doesn't look like he knows what to do with it. For me I'd try and extend his contract for a year then send him off to a league 2 side for the season to get some regular first team football.

 

[derek]

I subscribe to both the Pre and Post Match reports on the BBC Sounds app and all the pre game programmes for this season are there in My Sounds, so maybe you could try that.

Yes, I do that already. Post-match programmes are only there for Saturdays, not mid-week games. They don't have them in the first place, which was the point I was making. The Crewe pre-game programme has appeared now.

 

[beyondthefourth]

It's going to be interesting to see if KR can get someone in short term to help us out defensively. Surely there are some youngsters at prem clubs who would benefit from being in and around the first team squad.

Good point here. For all the worries about us hitting our squad cap limit, there's surely a few U21 loanees worth our while to look at that wouldn't affect things?

I know we have our own prospects (JJ, etc) to blood in as a priority, but a 20 year old specialist RB/LB as cover wouldn't go amiss. From the luck we've had lately, it's not like they'll not end up getting the games.