Away Match Day Thread +++ 24/2/18 Northampton Town vs OUFC matchday thread +++

There were quite a few performances yesterday but having seen how poor they have been in previous games I wasn’t surprised. What did tho was Faz saying on Radox that he was happy with the performance !!!!!!! Surely he was the only person happy with that performance. Only poor finishing meant we weren’t out of sight by half time but their poor finishers just goes to show how dreadful we have been finishing of late. I thought Kane looked our biggest threat to score!!!!! That says it all. How Obika and Mowett are starting is beyond me, I thought Faz knew about football!! The 2 Man City players are perhaps too lightweight for a battle. So Faz you can’t be happy with that performance but yes be happy we scraped a draw!!!!!!!!
 
Result exceeded expectations. Good to see we kept a clean sheet.

Key to the rest of the season for me is Brannagan. Get him in, we need fresh legs and bite in midfield.

Poster who kept wittering on that "this team is far too good to get relegated" expects a defeat at 5th bottom club! And then wants a player he's never seen to save the season. :D You couldn't make it up - this is what Pep was building you PRB while you were dreaming.
 
I thought you’d chucked your toys out of the pram. Welcome back.


Yeah I’ll answer that. I wasn’t expecting much because we didn’t have a new man in the dug out. Simple as.

Still think we’ll easily avoid relegation.
 
Poster who kept wittering on that "this team is far too good to get relegated" expects a defeat at 5th bottom club! And then wants a player he's never seen to save the season. :D You couldn't make it up - this is what Pep was building you PRB while you were dreaming.
Too be fair there was a few more on here who dismissed the thought of relegation out of hand .
Next week is a massive game .
 
What's a little bit worrying is just how unpredictable this league is. I feel sometimes we focus too much on how we played vs whether the other team turned up.

Yes you can argue it's possible to make another team look good, but yesterday we played a team who had a really excellent first half, and we could easily have lost. Last week we played the form team in the entire league who were actually quite poor and we should have won, but for a howler from our otherwise excellent keeper.

Who knows which Fleetwood team will turn up?
 
What's a little bit worrying is just how unpredictable this league is. I feel sometimes we focus too much on how we played vs whether the other team turned up.

Yes you can argue it's possible to make another team look good, but yesterday we played a team who had a really excellent first half, and we could easily have lost. Last week we played the form team in the entire league who were actually quite poor and we should have won, but for a howler from our otherwise excellent keeper.

Who knows which Fleetwood team will turn up?
I think people in their understandly cautious/pessimistic way, underestimate the amount of twists and turns and surprises that will still play out before the seasons end. It’s the fact that none of us can predict anything from the form of teams to dodgy ref decisions and sendings off etc that makes us love the game so much
 
To be honest we could of been ten points clear at the top and Northampton ten points adrift at the bottom and I would of still been surprised we got a point.

Nowt to do with the team. They beat us consistently no matter the league standing. That's football.
 
Thought we were better side by far in second half, and woeful in first. Point a decent result for us. Dickie had a great game, looks a real find, and I though Mous looked better for having him alongside him - nelson/dickie pairing next year could be good. I thought Silva had a decent game as well being the only spark of creativity ... Mowatt I find frustrating, I’d have left Henry on and gave Mowatt the hook. It’s a struggle at the moment but I don’t think we’ll go down ... ‘hopefully’ the new manager will give us a slight boost. I still think mid table is the right call... then we’ll see what Bellamy can build. COYY!
 
Crikey, Tim, when a point against a relegation embattled team exceeds your expectations, that means you are expecting us to lose pretty much every game (our home record isn't much better than our away)

What happened to your talismanic team?

And, more presciently, if you expect us to lose against a team as bad as that then how on earth can you be expecting us to escape relegation 'easily' and 'finish mid-table'.

Let's be quite clear: escaping relegation easily means having more than the 52 points usually required going into our tough last five games.
That means getting 10 points from the next 7 games. And that is going to need us to WIN three of our next seven games. If scraping a point at Northampton exceeds your expectations then it makes very little sense for you to expect us to escape relegation 'easily'.

Indeed. And if we need 10 points from only the next 3 games and discount the subsequent 9 games, then relegation is a mathematical certainty. We are doomed.
 
Indeed. And if we need 10 points from only the next 3 games and discount the subsequent 9 games, then relegation is a mathematical certainty. We are doomed.

Clearly, we are not 'doomed'. But, in my view, the usual flatterers and ass lickers are unduly complacent. Little Dave and Tim airily brush off our current position - as they have since we started playing badly back in the autumn - and say 'no point in worrying, we are far too good to go down'
And they always rest hopes on a sudden dramatic improvement from someone they know nothing about. A new player. A new manager. This leaving aside that they thought that the current players and Pep were the second coming after we drew at home to an average Bradford side.
The form is indisputable. We have garnered 30 points from 28 games. That is a very large sample, and indicates a return of about 1.1 points a game - or 52 points in a season if displayed over the full 46 games.
So, since September we have displayed the form of a team who may scrape 20th place.
And yet we are told that this is a 'talismanic' team that is 'being built' and will 'easily finish mid table this season' before 'pushing on from there'. It's Alice in Wonderland stuff.
Because of our points yield from the first six games of the season, I would guess that the shower currently purporting to play for us will end up scraping home with about 55 points in about 18th place. Nothing mid-table about it, and a doffed cap to Jack Payne and Eastwood.
Then will begin the mother of all clear-outs, as the 'talismanic team' gets dismantled. We are looking at, what, 15 players out? And quite a few of those left behind, one would not want to be left. And our only valuable players have 1 year left on their contract (Eastwood, Ledson, Nelson, Hall) or nothing (Rothwell) After years of careful building across many different parts of the club by Kelvin, Lenagan and Ashton, this chaos has been looming down the track for a while after two years of bad and unstrategic decisions which have gone unexamined and unnoticed by a supine fanbase. I just fervently hope that we get a new manager bounce to get us over the line and give Tiger the one remaining plus point - League 1 status - to build from. We have the perfect two games to launch the bounce and get short-term confidence up a little, so let's hope the new gaffer gets announced on Monday and has a few days to work on a plan for Fleetwood.
 
Great support yesterday although the stadium music drowned out the atmosphere. We looked nervous in the first half with poor passing and shot selection. Lucky not to be 2 or 3 nil down at half time. Second half better but the subs should have come on earlier as I think we might have got a result. Lucky to get a draw. Good that we got a clean sheet. We need to get the manager situation sorted as it’s going to be nail biting if we are going to say up. The players need to communicate more with each other and focusss more on the final ball. The Amazing highlight yesterday at the match was sitting 2 rows in front of me on how an under 1 year old baby waring not a lot of baby clothes sitting on her mothers’ Lap watching the whole match in the freezing cold making baby coo coo and giggling noises.
 
I think Northampton will have been looking at yesterday as a nailed on win and a necessary result in their fight against relegation, so in that sense it’s a good result.

I think one good thing that has come from this season is the tactful way napa is being phased into the team. Looks a real talent and has gone from being given the odd minute here and there to an exciting option coming off the bench in practically every game. Looks a real talent and I think some credit has to be given to the management for the way they have managed his introduction to first team football this year. I want IBR to do well because I was stood near his dad at the Charlton game and he was really sound, but it is a shame his introduction has probably limited the number of minutes Napa could be getting.
 
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