I read with interest your comments inside the front cover of the last Rage On and those on the web page.

I don’t have the former in front of me now but you struck a chord with me when you referred to there being something fundamentally wrong with the club, a malaise that rests at its core and has permeated throughout.

If we think back over the last 3 to 4 seasons we’ve seen virtually 5 different teams as firstly Shotton, then Smith, Kemp, Wright and lastly Atkins each brought in a whole stream of different players. No matter who the players or the managers were and what team was selected the end result was always the same – losing, seemingly gutless, performances.

Other teams, certainly this season and probably in the previous 2 as well, did not appear to have superior teams on paper but as we now regularly get outplayed by the likes of Darlington and Hartlepool (no disrespect intended to them as they’re quite clearly playing much better than us) it makes life being a yellows fan hard labour (especially coming from Wokingham – Reading territory).

I’ve supported Oxford since 1961 and things have never been worse on the playing side. Off the pitch, we’ve nearly got a very good stadium (but let us please soon have the 4th stand) and an embryonic infrastructure with potential hotel, business centre, cinema etc which promises sound finances in the future. Although (next season) it is tempting to say that we need yet another set of players to enable the situation to stabilise, at least, thereis more needed than yet another clutch of manager’s playing cronies.

There is something eminently comfortable for a player returning to a former manager. Any new player should obviously feel wanted when he arrives at a new club and should strive to do well for himself as well as the fans (with the latter helping achieve the former) but perhaps the competitive (for both a team place and against opposition) edge is missing, albeit subconciously, because the manager is a “mate”. Whereas managers would probably claim that they prefer to sign players who they “know can do a job” for them, unless they have been watching these players regularly and recently they cannot have a contemporaneous feel for what their level of performance is.

In Atkins’ recent signings, without a scouting system he is surely basing his views on what such former players did for him months or even years earlier. And what is more, most of these players are not featuring in the first teams from where we’re acquiring them. Question for the anoraks – other than Andy Scott (Quinn?), who else among recent signings for Oxford featured as a regular for their previous league club when we signed them?

So new players, yes, but please may they be acquired with care and fill positions where there is a need – right back, creative midfielder (Darren Ferguson/Bobby Ford – expensive, yes, but the sort of players we need to get us out of this mess), big(gish) mobile striker. It’s tempting to add centre backs but we’ll overdose on these soon. Does anybody other than Atkins really think that Crosby and Bound are any better that Bolland and Guyettand if so, in what way? The latter two were a little raw but they had more pace and in fact the defensive record when they played was better than that under Crosby and Bound. I remember when Briggs and Shotton started to form their partnership. They struggled for a while but patience and good coaching saw them develop into a formidable partnership. Bolland and Guyett may never have emulated the heights of Briggs and Shotton but I feel they offered more for the future than Crosby and Bound.

We need to re-instate a scouting system so that we don’t just rely on Atkins’ memory and address book for his former players. The younger players need more regular chances and should not be discarded for the latest loan signing from Carlisle reserves. Simon King is a good prospect and should start regularly. So should Chris Hackett and if no better midfielders are found, Dean Whitehead. Illness permitting, Jamie Brooks speaks for himself.

As for the manager himself, I just don’t know. Why does he never stay anywhere very long? Much has been made of his trouble shooting abilities but what exactly has he done? Success at Northampton, indeed, but that eventually turned to failure and he just got very lucky at Carlisle. He failed at Chester though and thus far he’s failing here too. He can talk the talk but now he has to show that he can walk the walk. We’ve only equalled the number of central defenders joining the club by the number of managers doing likewise so we could really do with some stability here. Atkins needs time to show if he can do the business but he won’t be still with us this time next year without a marked improvement on the pitch between now and then.

Does FK need a football guru, like Jim Smith for instance, to sit alongside him and advise him of footballing matters? It didn’t work with Harford and Kinnear yet they’ve both moved on to success after leaving Oxford (who doesn’t?!), which raises the question of where the problem lies in this respect. FK is a very successful businessman but is an innocent in the football world. Whether it’s his fault, more or less, is unclear but he has presided over the most unsuccessful football team currently in the football league. I’m not overly critical of him – I just don’t know enough about what goes on behind the scenes – and probably without him we would not have a team or a ground, but having achieved those basics perhaps he now needs to accept “macro” football advice.

If there was a solution to all our problems, simple or otherwise, cleverer people than I would have come up with it by now. Identification of shortcomings is easier than remedying them. Other clubs have fallen on hard times and recovered. Oxford itself went from non-league to the top league in just over 20 years and more realistically from old Division 4 to old Division 2 in 6 years so it can be done. The right people were around then to do the business – let’s just hope something similar will emerge soon.Very soon.