FAN’S VIEW  2025/26 – WREXHAM AWAY

This season I think our performances can be very broadly placed into one of three categories.

Cat C (Poor/Very poor. Relegation on the cards). Cat B (Just about okay. Nothing to shout about but might just about keep us up). Cat A (Good/Very good. This is more like it. Up the table we go. Play-offs in sight?)

Prior to this one as a whole, I’ve been underwhelmed with our performances even though I think we’ve got a better squad than last season. I’ve taken the ill-advised – from the perspective of proper preparation for the coming Championship campaign – trip to Indonesia into account in my assessment thus far, but that’s now completely worn off with us being eleven games in.

We’ve hit Cat A level twice: Bristol City away and last Saturday when we hammered Derby 1-0. Our form dipped in the game after Bristol. Surely though immediately following our first home win, with Ciaron Brown back and a full squad to choose from, we were on the up and would maintain our standards. I travelled to Wales feeling rather optimistic.

Silly me. Silly silly me.

This was a Cat C stuff. The only reason it wasn’t Cat C minus was because we again only lost by one goal and therefore, in theory, were still in the game right up until the final whistle.

My son has told me that whenever I return home from an away game and we’ve lost I’ve got nothing good to say about the team. He’s always that bit more positive (or should that be less negative) having watched it on Sky. It’s the same with Mrs FV.

The sample couldn’t be smaller I know but this got me wondering. Does it hurt us travellers more than those who sit in the warm, turn their TVs on just before kick-off and remain in their own homes throughout? The 1300 OUFC fans in attendance will have been away from home for many hours, not arriving back in the shire until early on Thursday morning. They’ll have spent a not inconsiderable amount on the price of admission and travel along with the optional extras such as beer and refreshment. This lot are much more likely to feel short changed than those who relied on their Sky subscription or dodgy stick. Would it be fair to ask who it all meant the most to? No thought not.

I left this match quite worried. One of the key things Gary Rowett brings as a manger is that his teams will have physicality to match the opposition and not get bullied. Under GR I thought we’d put that well behind us and now overall had a stronger bunch of bigger players. It didn’t look like that, particularly in the first half. Wrexham were winning all the battles. Not only did they appear stronger, they were quicker and sharper too. It was as if they were playing football at Championship pace and we were not. They took the initiative from the off and never relinquished it.

Match stats show tackles won: Wrexham 80%, Oxford 59.1%. And there you have it.  

When was the last time Cameron Brannagan had a dominant game? I used to recall him flying into tackles and winning the ball. That broke up our opponents’ play, often gave us possession and motivated his colleagues and the fans. I can’t remember the last time he did that. And as for his back passes, what on earth was he thinking? Not only did the one he played early on here needlessly put us in trouble, it set the standard for the rest of the encounter. Bran didn’t even hold his hand up and acknowledge his cock up. That pissed me off. No-one should be un-droppable and I suspect Rowett has the same thinking.

We never got our wide men going. In contrast theirs were left in acres of space. On this showing we should be questioning the thinking that we’ve got two very good full-backs. Perhaps with experience that will prove to be the case but this is the here and now.

We didn’t create. We didn’t play as a team when we had the ball. We were second best all over the pitch.  We had a man advantage for over 20 minutes yet still managed a couple of times to make it look like it was us who were a player light.

The only two decent chances we had that I can recall was when Stan Mills came inside and got a good shot away in the first half and Will Lankshear hitting the bar with a header from the free-kick after Callum Doyle’s dismissal.

What about Wrexham? I thought they were rather good even if they only got the one goal and to be honest didn’t create a bucket load of chances. It’s been said we made them look good. Possibly. But did they make us make them look good?

Should Jamie Cumming have saved the goal? He very nearly did. But he didn’t. If he had and it had remained goal-less would the whole narrative have been different? What a good point coming to a place like this on the up with all the Hollywood boost. No, this was Wrexham’s first home win of the season.

If we keep performing regularly like this, we’ll be relegated some time before the season is over. Not one player had a good game. Average at best. No-one was capable of making something happen. We had no presence like Keiffer Moore.

We have to play again in three days’ time and that’s away again. Rowett has a huge challenge to sort things out before our visit to Hillsborough. Players don’t train much the day after a game. That’s Thursday taken care of. On Friday they’ll be heading north.

If we perform like we did here, Wednesday will do us. That would be a disaster for morale imho. It certainly will be for mine. If we do things right, they should be there for the taking, but they have developed a siege mentality and have dug in incredibly well given the resources they have been left with. Barry Bannon has come forward as a leader at the centre of all this. Time to bring Sam Long back and give BB a hard but fair reducer of a tackle in the first minute? Wouldn’t it be great if we could set the tone, not our opponents.

A positive or two to end on.

The table says we’re not in the bottom three even though we’ve only won two games all season.

Sneaky parking right near the ground ensured a quick getaway – and boy did I want to get out of there.

But Wrexham is not a shithole. The Magic Dragon Brewery Tap was right up there with the best drinking establishments I’ve been in for quite some time. Perhaps the beer was a little too cold for the purists and perhaps it was helped on its way by a little gas (my mate thought so) but I know what I like and these beers were excellent. For CAMRA members 30p a pint/10p a half discount. The only downside was that I was the driver for the evening so stuck to just two halves of not very strong ale.

It will be the train to Sheffield so more beer than on Wednesday. Watching the yellows, an alcoholic drink or two is needed these days.

At times like this I feel I should say “keep the faith” if not for anyone else then just in my own ear.