FAN’S VIEW 21/22 – NO.30

WYCOMBE WANDERERS 2 OXFORD UNITED 0

Whenever I start a FV I have a rough idea what I am going to cover but I regularly end up meandering down a road or cul-de-sac that had not been in my initial thinking.

Like last week I left the starting blocks with the intention of making it fairly brief. On that occasion it didn’t turn out that way but I’ll give it another bash.

Last week I asked whether a season could unravel in two games. I’ll now add a third game to that and conclude that almost certainly yes it can. In all three we have not been good enough. Simple as. The Lincoln defeat could perhaps be put into perspective by what they, or more accurately Chris Maguire, did to Sunderland in the week. Perhaps but no I won’t have it. Cambridge booted that perspective into the long grass of reality. It’s not as if we are in the Premier League where the gulf between top and bottom is vast and we have to face a Man City or Liverpool occasionally. Yes there are some really big clubs in L1 who without doubt aspire to fashion a return to the level from which they have fallen, but we’ve had five seasons prior to this one so should surely have now got to grips with what is required to take that next step.

We’ve made the play-offs in the last two campaigns but fell short both times where I believe we let ourselves down and I think we are doing so again now.

Some things seem crystal clear to me but others may have 20:20 vision in an opposite direction.

In this game Wycombe were physically stronger than us and with that came a desire, apparent or actual, to want the ball that little bit more than us. Their whole team looked bigger and more muscular than we did.

Football is game of both skill and physicality. Wycombe probably have more of the former than they are given credit for but when it came to the latter absolutely lauded it over us.

Strength is a vital attribute when a player in possession is trying to hold an opponent off, when a player out of possession is trying, hopefully fairly, to dispossess an opponent or when going into a 50:50 challenge on the ground or in the air. Imagine how disheartened our guys must have felt knowing that even going into a tackle giving 110% they’d probably lose the battle as the man in a blue shirt they were facing was twice the size of them.

Sam Long is a wholehearted warrior who would spill his last drop of blood for the club but here he looked small compared to some of theirs and Matty Taylor v Ryan Tafazolli was a farcical contest. Might as well have been Tyson Fury v Mother Teresa and that is meant as no disrespect to our number nine.

Wycombe have a knack of ensuring the game is played on their terms. They are incredibly good at it and I take my hat off to them for this. We know what they do yet we had no game plan to deal with it. Why? Is Karl deluded enough to think that if we keep trying to play football against the Chairboys it will suddenly come right and more often than not we’ll be beating them on a consistent basis? Or is it that he just doesn’t have the players in the squad to deal with such opponents? If not I’d ask why not? We know what the challenges are. We know what they did to us at Wembley. Have we not learnt anything?

On the day we had no plan B. Isn’t that the case on most, if not all, days when we’re up against it?

The Taylor/Tafazolli contest did my head in. Time and again the ball was in the air. It wasn’t working but we kept doing it. We need an alternative who can come out of the trenches and do combat when there is a war on. What do we have in our armoury? Sam Winnall and Dan Agyei. Basically feck all.

It’s not just that though. Why didn’t we get the ball to Taylor’s feet? As it wasn’t working why didn’t Matty come wide and or drop deeper from time to time to link up the play a bit as he has often done this season? Why not have one of our faster players coming through the middle running at Tafazolli or standing quite close to him ready to engineer a race? Surely it had not gone un-noticed that their no.6 was struggling to move and towards the end of the game every time there was a stoppage in play, which was quite frequent, he lay on the turf and was doing stretching exercises. Did we consider any of this or was it that we just weren’t capable of putting it into practice given that there were nine other outfield players doing everything possible to make us as ineffective as possible, which is exactly what they should be doing? And us to them but we didn’t.

(I can already tell again ain’t gonna be a short one after all)

The above is based on how I felt witnessing what happened on the pitch and writing this the following day I still feel the same. It might be that I fixed my mind-set long before the game was over and shut out anything that would counter what I’ve written so far.

So once more it’s time to turn to the stats and a quick analysis of the highlights.

57% possession – no surprise.

Duel success 52% and aerial duel success 53% – a total surprise.

We made 18 tackles to their 17 but our success rate at this important skill was only 72% whilst theirs was 94%. Much less of a surprise here.

Corners: Us 6, them just the 2. But it’s what a team does with them when they get them that counts.

Shots: Us 15 with 7 on target, them 9 with 5 on target. I was very aware that we had quite a few chances but feeble efforts and stunning efforts all get a tick in the box. Clinicality wins the day. Wycombe won the day.

Our passing was more accurate than theirs in both halves of the pitch and again not a surprise that we made about 30% more passes than they did. I was going to say with regard to the next stat, total surprise, but perhaps not so given the number of time futile high balls were banged to our no.9. Wycombe made 77 long passes, we made 99. That’s not our game.

There weren’t any decent chances created until about half way through the first half. That chance was ours and we really should have taken the lead. Mark Sykes sent the lively Ryan Williams away down the wing and his perfect cut back found Nathan Holland totally unmarked on the penalty spot with keeper David Stockdale on the deck and temporarily out of the game. Tavazolli and his partner had positioned themselves in the six yard box to form a barrier of sorts in front of the goal and our loanee contrived to hit Anthony Stewart with his shot. Keeping it low would have been much the better option and he could quite possibly have controlled it before picking his spot. This showed a lack of composure and top class finishing. I expect better from a 23 year old whose parent club is near the top of the Premier League.

To be fair to us at this stage we looked slightly the more likely to score and to be fair to NH he did have another shot that Stockdale had to get down to his left to keep out.

However soon after we were behind and basically that was it. It came from a corner where the usual wrestling took place. All sorts go on but the biggest sinner appeared to be Williams and if referee Anthony Backhouse had pointed to the spot there could have been little legitimate complaint. We had eight white shirts in and around the six yard box to their five. That leaves them with spares elsewhere. Elliott Moore got some pace on his headed clearance but it only went towards the D where Jordan Obita did really well to pass with his head to Curtis Thompson. Both were unmarked, particularly so the scorer. Marcus McGuane’s positioning was such that he might as well have been stood in the stands with our away following.

Thompson hit it sweetly and kept it low. I do though wonder if L1 had VAR whether there may have been questions asked. A Wanderer in an offside position in Simon Eastwood’s line of sight?  Clutching at straws obviously and irrelevant because the goal stood.

From here on in I didn’t think we looked at all like getting ourselves back in it and when the home side got a second on the hour mark it was game over.  They broke with powerful running and intent and when Hanlan was played in he had all the time in the world to finish, which he did low and hard. We had three players that went to Gareth McCleary the man who made the pass. Collective awareness of what was going on behind them didn’t exist. This was another example of how poor we can be out of possession. Steve Seddon was way out of position. It was awful. It wasn’t as if there were only a few minutes left and we needed to chase the game.

Substitutions were soon made after the deficit had been doubled. In the 68^th minute McGuane and Williams were replaced by James Henry and Gavin Whyte then three minutes later it was Sam Winnall for Holland.

This improved us – well the first two did – with Henry being the main catalyst. He slipped Winnall in with a superb ball but it was a shit shot. One day, one day. I am reminding myself that he did get four league goals last season.

Cameron Brannagan put one just wide but didn’t really trouble Stockdale and that was it.

I have to ask if having Herbie Kane on the park would have made a difference? Possibly, but there were too many flaws to conclude that we would have come away with something. That said the punishment he got for at worst a slightly mistimed tackle is disproportionate in the extreme. Not only did he miss 23 minutes at Sincil Bank but three further matches is a mockery. That’s the rules and many other clubs will have been hard done by in this way too as well as benefiting when they’ve been lucky enough not to have to face a star man. A split second the other way and it could have been the Lincoln player sitting out a few matches. All down to the whims of one man.

Back to unravelling – transfer window, players out of contract soon, Championship clubs sniffing and more money on offer. Sykes, Brannagan and Moore. I’ve not got a good feeling at the moment about all of this.

(Yes, this is turning into another long one but there are many things that have to be said and some that don’t need to be but I undoubtedly will anyway)

It’s the whole Wycombe experience and the behaviour of football fans in 2022 as it seems that there is a regression of sorts. I was going to cover the not so well kept Stratfield Brake secret now that this news has broken and we have some detail. Potentially excellent for our football club and the local area in a wider sense even though there are many major hurdles to overcome before anything comes to fruition. The last thing we want is for football fans and those connected to OUFC in particular to generate bad publicity.

I used to quite like going to Wycombe but no more. I admired them for coming through from non- league in 1993 and establishing themselves by playing football the right way, if there ever has been such a thing. I liked their kit. There was something quite fresh about it.

There’s so much about the experience now though that just pisses me off. It’s not WWFC’s fault but the parking there is a nightmare. I left Bicester just before half twelve and it took me half as long as the journey to find a parking space getting caught up in road works on the West Wycombe road having been forced to loop around. Afterwards I didn’t get back up to that road to turn left and head back to the motorway until gone six o’clock.  It’s the same for all of us I know but having lost it’s much harder to bear.

Then there’s the away end. True a good atmosphere can be generated but there’s only one way in and out. I stood in the far corner as far away from the entrance/exit as it was possible to get. There were seven minutes of added time which meant the final whistle went later than normal but it took me until seven minutes past five to make it to the toilets before heading home. I don’t think any evacuation of that stand in an emergency could be done with any speed and it would no longer be possible to get onto the playing area as easily as it used to be. Sometimes that is a necessary escape route should disaster be imminent. The barriers are now metal ones screwed firmly to the floor and seemed higher than in some grounds. No problem for the young and the fit to get over but those with many years on the clock may not be so spritely.

I know the bloody Kassam stadium has holes in the roof and at times buckets are needed but here the occasional drip dropping onto the fans below took some explaining when it wasn’t raining. I looked up and saw the underside of the stand roof covered in many large droplets presumably condensation created by the weather conditions. Never known that before and it got me wondering just what were the materials used to build the structure we were located in.

I sit in the back row at our home ground and on our travels often seek out that position too. It not only gives a better view of the whole game but also ensures that I am not blocking anyone else’s view. A habit I have is turning to face the bricks/corrugated structure or whatever it is behind me at away games when I’ve just witnessed something from my team that displeases me. Better to do that in forced quiet contemplation than rant and rave and shout abuse as some tend to do.  I did this at Adams Park. A group of lads were just to my left and at one stage one of them was doing the very same thing. Or so I thought. Closer inspection would probably have confirmed that he was having a piss. I turned away. Then moved away a yard or two.  Well it was a long way to the toilets.

Our support from behind the goal where the singing was mostly coming from had me shaking my head as I usually do with regard to the unoriginality of it all. It’s just mundane. When away fans give it: “Is this a library?” and the rest of the usual including “you’re only here because …” at our place I always think what a bunch of tossers.  Why should I feel any different here even if it is all basically harmless?

Not all chants are without offence as we well know. When the announcement reminding that homophobic abuse will not be tolerated was made I was at a loss. I’d genuinely not heard anything so wrongly assumed it was directed at the home support although that didn’t really make any sense. Turns out it was a very small minority.

There’s a post on Yellows Forum stating “I was about ten rows back behind the goal, and it was pretty much non- stop offensive chanting all afternoon. A bunch of about 30-40 morons, mostly in their late teens/early twenties. It was like being back in the 70’s. I haven‘t seen that sort of nonsense for years. Hope they don’t turn up to an Oxford game again”. Another contributor added “Back in the 70’s those 30-40 morons would have run a mile”.

It’s all very depressing which sadly fitted in well with the whole day. Clearly it’s wrong and needs stamping out. A sound and reasoned debate is difficult to have. If someone dares to suggest that perhaps it is being blown a bit out of proportion others immediately jump down their throats.

All I’ll say is that the quicker all the bad stuff that is creeping back into football is eradicated the better. Perhaps we’ve gone a bit past the nipping in the bud stage.

When we first started playing Wycombe in the Football League I considered their supporters basically a nice bunch.  I have a picture of middle class women approaching middle age wearing their team’s shirt, walking along with their husbands by their sides. Sunday school teacher types.

That’s long gone. On Saturday we had a moron of the first order running onto the pitch during the game approaching our fans with incitement the intent. If reports on social media are to be believed an 18 year old from Thame has been given a conditional caution for entering the field of play.

A conditional caution is an out of court disposal (OOCD) issued by the police. It is an alternative to a prosecution where the case may be relatively minor and where the police/CPS feel it is appropriate.

I wonder what the conditions are but think it could well be lenient in the extreme when compared to some punishments that are handed out to football fans. I always go back ten years to one of our fans being jailed for holding an unlit smoke bomb that the judge decided was a grenade.

I would have said that this pitch encroachment was worse.

And then there was the supporter in the stand to our left who clearly gave Gavin Whyte quite a shove in the back when he’d gone to retrieve the ball. After having done this he just carried on back to his seat. It was plain to see. Not one steward or police person made any attempt to serve justice. Will anything happen after the event? It absolutely should.

Having taken a while to leave the ground as explained above, the vast majority of our supporters were much further down the road than me and my mate. We ended up in and around their equivalent of our “30-40 morons” only given they were the home team I’d guess there was quite a few more of them than that. “Oxford get battered everywhere they go, everywhere they go” they sang. Those words have also been posted by Alex P on the Oxford United Official You Tube page. Clearly provocative, clearly not the Sunday school teacher types. It’s quite hard not to bite and I’m pretty certain we had a sizeable number there who, if they’d not passed further into the night, would have done so.

Is there a concerted effort to make this more of a genuine derby than it is because that’s how it is beginning to feel?

As I’ve already said very depressing and such a shame on a day when the applause for Alana ‘Lana’ Hurford a 29 year old Wycombe fan who passed away on New Year’s Eve after a short illness was heard in the 29^th minute coming from all sides of the ground. If my memory isn’t playing tricks on me I think the game actually stopped briefly.

This is what football support should be all about. We should all be in it together even if we don’t like each other much for 90 minutes.

The majority have to make sure the minority who are beginning to spoil the match day experience and unfortunately seem to be growing in number are firmly put in their places before it all starts to run away with itself.

However, much as there was loads to loathe about the day at least I was able to attend as I have done for many many decades. On reflection I’ll take that. Some people are gone way too soon. R.I.P young lady.

Oh dear, I’ve just produced possibly my longest ever FV.