FAN’S VIEW 22/23 – No.12: MK DONS AT HOME

No Fleetwood next week

Well luck is kind of going our way with another game being postponed. Given our very poor form and players out injured very good news indeed. Northern Ireland have called up the Cod Army’s Paddy Lane and from OUFC Ciaron Brown one of our best performers so far this season. Malta have picked Jodi Jones so if he was the tipping point perhaps there is some use in us having signed him after all. Any idea what’s gone on with JJ and our manager?

Our opponents

No one, outside of their own fan base, likes them. But do they care?

Yet again we come across accounts (to y/e 30/06/21) that give way more information than is available on Oxford United.

Again we find a Strategic Report. This includes a Business Review and KPIs, Financial Risk (credit, cash flow and liquidity) and other Principle Risks and Uncertainties (Operational, Health and Safety, People, Brexit, Climate Change, and Covid-19). Perhaps they’re all just words and box ticking. Sometimes I wonder.

Staff costs for the year were £4.2m which really surprised me. I thought they were bigger payers than that.

Their turnover was £3.9m the bulk of which was “Commercial (including league distributions) of £2.7m. They got £325k from the furlough scheme.

They made an operating loss on the year of £2.8m but taking account of player sales and tax credit on losses (something which I don’t claim to fully understand) came out £951k up.

Their balance sheet showed a shareholders deficit of £12.9m which, as per the norm, was basically covered by group undertakings. That debt is owed to Stadium MK Group Ltd and the Directors of said company had given written assurances that repayment wouldn’t be sought unless the football clubs cash flow permitted it and that no interest would be charged or securities held in relation to the amounts owed.

Milton Keynes Dons Ltd is 100% owned by Stadium MK Group Ltd, formerly InterMK Group Ltd, and before that Seckloe 350 Ltd. My understanding, which may be flawed, is that this company is wholly owned by Pete Winkleman. So it would appear that Winkleman having been gifted a football club is still pulling all the strings.

Winkleman’s net worth a few years back was listed in the Daily Mirror as £158m. Absolute chicken feed compared to our current owners, but so what?

This is their 19^th season in the Football League and that’s 19 seasons too many. They started in Tier 3 because some deluded fools ruled that they were Wimbledon. That’s been done to death but it is what it was. They’ve had one season in the Championship, three in League 2 and the rest at this level.

Last season Wycombe did them 2-1 on aggregate  in the play-off semi-final. Well done Wycombe. That’s hard to write. Sunderland did Wycombe in the final. Well done Sunderland. That felt better to say.

This season, like us, MK have had a terrible start. Theirs is even worse than ours. They’re three points worse off than us and in the bottom three.  Like us they’ve only managed to keep one clean sheet. Only Forest Green and the atrocious Burton on zero clean sheets are worse. I thought we were utter garbage in having not scored in three of our eight games but MK trump that nicely with five.

So if we can’t beat them I think there might be calling from some quarters for heads to roll.

  Oxford United 1 MK Dons 2

I’ve reasoned over the last few weeks that beers are an unconditional requirement before watching our team. So in to the city it was just before 11:30. Kings Arms opening time advertised as 11:00. Shut. The Royal Blenheim which I had down as the top pub in the centre anyway more than cemented that position. Open. Beer could not have been better. Friendly bar staff who recognise you from previous visits and a CAMRA discount to boot. It’s a meeting place for Oxford fans of a certain type and a place it would be very easy to stay in and keep drinking but I’d arranged to go the St Aldates Tavern later which sadly and inevitably, was a downgrade. The consensus amongst us was that the ale wasn’t great and not really worth its current GBG listing. Next up was the Magdalen Arms after a bit of a walk. Clearly doing a good trade with loads of people ready to eat and impressive that the lad behind the bar asked the “handle or straight” question. Quality of ale fell between that of the two previous establishments we’d visited but this was the most expensive at over a fiver a pint. (I got that round in but that’s the way it goes – a decent performance and a win and I wouldn’t give a s**t, a crap performance and defeat and I’m looking at anything and everything about the day that I can moan about).

ROBINSON OUT? I’m not normally a fan who is calling for the manager to be shown the door. Far from it. I usually try to defend the incumbent when they are turned on but it’s not just this season we’ve been way below the standard required to get to the next level. When the pressure was on last campaign we turned out to be very much an also ran that didn’t have the balls to be at the head of the pack. We only picked up 10 points of the last 24 available.  This time around 10 points from nine games against mostly weak opposition is absolutely woeful.

I hate feeling this way. I don’t want people to lose their livelihood and KR’s enthusiasm used to be infectious but surely we need a change.

If someone can persuade me that it is not Karl who can mostly be held responsible for recruitment, coaching, team selection, shape, style of play and motivation then I’ll happily change my opinion.

For me this was a game too far. MK were very poor as the stats and league position indicated but we were poorer.

Every manager at every club has a shelf life. I’ve heard more than one fan describe the current situation as stale. It certainly is and that is being polite.

Should also include the number of season ticket holders who are giving matches a swerve and the number left in the ground at the final whistle. Photo, Simon Jaggs 

The man who sits just to the left of us always leaves with about 10 minutes to go. For this game, with 66 minutes on the clock, he upped and left. I know of season ticket holders who are not bothering to attend. I’ve not heard any that still do attend say they are enjoying it. Sense of duty more like.

I asked my son and Mrs FV on returning home if they thought Robbo should stay. My son who is always very measured and defends players and staff alike to the hilt replied “Not at the moment”. Mrs FV thinks that Karl has enough credit in the bank to stay and that we need to wait until the injured players are back. A case of agreeing to disagree and wanting my usually beautifully cooked Sunday roast.

I think for every other FV I’ve written – and there have been hundreds – I’ve watched replays of the highlights to confirm my opinions or to put me right but I can’t face watching any of this again.  It feels like a nadir of sorts.

We’ve turned into a joke. Season ticket holders have paid up front, more the fools us, but that’s what we do. The product on offer at the moment categorically has nothing whatsoever to attract those that pay on a game by game basis.

Our lack of pace is embarrassing. Our lack of width is embarrassing. Some of our performances were embarrassing. Billy Bodin contributed nothing. He and James Henry are pedestrian. Again Kyle Joseph was nothing. Seventeen year old Gaitlin O’Donkor looked to have more physical presence when he came on.

Marcus McGuane started quite well but faded. Cameron Brannagan is a shadow of the player we know he is (or think he is). Marcus Browne showed a bit then nothing. He’s lost amongst the shite that is the whole. If there was a word that nails the opposite of synergy I’d use it here.

As ever because the officials are as dreadful as the detritus our football team is putting before us at the moment, there’s an argument that we were unlucky. Simon Eastwood touched the ball before the man went down therefore it should not have been a penalty. We had what looked like a nailed on penalty for handball. Josh McEachran should have had a second yellow. Possibly, probably, almost certainly to all of these but there’s no getting away from the fact that we’re abject.

Yes we hit the frame of the goal twice in the same incident. Unlucky or poor finishing? Fact is we didn’t score with either effort and other than that rarely looked like doing so. Mous’s header was a mere consolation that didn’t console at all.

At 1-0 down I commented that even if we were to turn the game around and somehow get a win our performance could still be classed as nothing more than awful.

Time to talk about the possibility of relegation. Realistically we have to but there are some other godawful rank teams in L1. Thank you Burton. (But they beat Exeter). I’m more confident than not that we’ll stay up but not by that much. More of this and that confidence will soon evaporate completely.

Perhaps when those injured players come back we’ll climb up the league, but where to? Mid table safety? Wasn’t the budget handed out one that, if spent wisely – oh, how I fall about laughing – should have got us into the play-offs?

Sam Baldock. Not played yet. Injury record known when signed. Nearly 20% of the season gone.

Matty Taylor wasn’t scoring before he got injured and was having nothing created for him.

Yanic Wildscutt. Who knows?

Josh Murphy. Again who knows?

Elliott Moore. Played four league games of which three were defeats.

And those that are not injured?

Jodi Jones. Wtf? Not even on the bench today. Great signing.

Djavan Anderson. ??? A quarter of an hour against Plymouth. Not brought off the bench here even though we still had the option of two further subs. Why is he here?

Alex Gorrin. He couldn’t have made things worse.

I ****ing despair.

ROBBO OUT? But …… we need a manager and I acknowledge there are worse out there than him. How switched on are our owners all those miles away? Have they got their finger on the pulse? Do they really understand these things? Have they got the tiniest inkling how the fans are feeling at the minute? And if there was a change any new manager would obviously only have the current unbalanced squad to work with until the transfer window re-opens. But that window is not much help when we’ve got so many here under contract that are injured / not performing / not being picked. Who would want them if we tried to unload?  We’re told we have a top six-ish budget, which won’t be doing the finances much good, and I suspect the owners may be reluctant to throw good money after bad.

It really does look like a right old mess. We were building something, playing attractive football and competing around the play-off places. What was needed to push on from that to the next L1 level was to tighten up defensively. Instead we’ve morphed into a team that creates very little, can’t score goals and whilst not (yet) leaking all over the place can’t keep clean sheets.