FAN’S VIEW 22/23 – No.32 – WYCOMBE AWAY

WYCOMBE WANDERERS 2 OXFORD UNITED 0

This is one of the worst fixtures on the calendar for us. Some things about it cannot be changed but we are largely to blame for the awfulness of it all seemingly season after season.

It takes some doing but the location, public transport and parking is even worse than at the Kassam. Have to say though that our driver always finds a way even if we don’t arrive early. We stayed to the end of the game, used the toilets at the final whistle and I was still at home in Bicester a couple of minutes before half past ten.

Pubs, forget it. Stupidly I went in that tent thing. Rebellion, that’s usually a decent pint. A fiver a pop, well that’s what football clubs charge. Of course it was the fizzy version and bloody cold. Plus one of the two I purchased wasn’t even a full pint.

Then the cost of getting in. £26 or £23 concessions. For a view from behind the goal. The highest in the division?

Then the service in the ground. My mate was desperate for a couple of hot Bovrils for himself and his partner so joined the queue at half time. He’d been waiting in line for about 15 minutes and then with just one person in front of him and about 20 still behind, those serving announced the man in front was the last they’d serve. The level of desperation was such that he gave that man a tenner to add the Bovrils to his order.

I’d likely not care much about these things if we’d won, but we didn’t so I do. Was it these kinds of reasons why so many United fans stayed away? Was it too cold? We were over 300 short of a sell-out in the away end. Local derby it may not be but it’s just down the road ffs. I suspect deep down it may be because a sizeable proportion of our fan base have no belief at all in Karl Robinson ever getting us promoted to the Championship. Truthfully I think I’m in this camp.

Seems the home fans weren’t that interested either. Only 4454 of them turned up

Until we start beating teams like Wycombe in games like this we’re going nowhere pleasant. I can’t see Robbo ever building a squad to do it or sending out a team set up in such a way to do it on a regular basis. After this his overall record against Gareth Ainsworth in the League is won 2, drawn 2 and lost 4. GA has sussed it out. Of the last five we’ve lost four and drawn one – we’ve not scored in the last four.

Some may attempt to write it off as a “bogey team” thing. I’m having none of that. It’s down to mind-sets, strength and preparation. I don’t think we even went down fighting.

We had 60% possession and made 354 passes to their 309. So what? They were well happy to let us have the ball, having gone two up with just over half an hour gone as we were mostly incapable of creating much at all. They were probably laughing at us we were that toothless. Another game when we failed to score. Apparently we had 19 shots in total. I need to look up the definition of a “shot”. Two of those were on target. Can’t remember their keeper, Max Stryjek, having to do a lot to stop them. A picture in a national newspaper around the time of the Arsenal game showed that Robbie Fowler is still at the club. Can someone please explain to us what on earth he is contributing?

We had eleven corners, wow. Can’t recall that we threatened from them though.

As we trudged out at the end I heard comment that “what we need is a proper centre-forward”. Yes that and a hell of a lot more before we’re anywhere near being genuinely competitive at the top of the table.

There was the usual talk of the shithousery from the home side. Come on people we’ve got to get away from this. I didn’t think on the night they were any worse than many teams. They were just quicker, more athletic and overall a more robust bunch than we were.

We’ve got many players who can’t last 90 minutes and many who always seem injured or about to be injured. On this evidence Ainsworth has built a better, stronger and more balanced squad than Robbo has.

Face it they’re better than us. It hurts when their fans sing, as I’ve noted before, “Oxford United it’s happened again” and “Oxford get battered everywhere they go.”  The latter isn’t true because we don’t get smashed against some teams with certain styles but they’ve got the bragging rights no doubt about that.

They’re now six points above us in seventh position. If we’d beaten them we would have gone above them. We didn’t even come close. There’s a gap.

Last season they made the play-off final. We finished eighth, seven points behind them.

We didn’t play them in 2020/21 because they were in the Championship for a season having beaten us in the behind closed doors final at Wembley the previous season.

This hurt really runs deep but we need to be honest about it – and do something about it. Why is it that Ainsworth can always outthink our manager? Or is it that he doesn’t have to do much thinking to beat what he knows is going to be put in front of him?

The build-up of the host’s first goal on 19 minutes started when Cameron Brannagan gave the ball away trying to thread a pass through for either Kyle Joseph or Yanic Wildschut to run onto in the penalty area.

Once Wycombe had possession, a quick accurate first time ball was played to Anis Mehmeti who was just inside his own half, out wide on the left. Djavan Anderson was nowhere to be seen defensively nor had any other white shirt covered for his disappearance. By the time Anderson had caught up with Mehmeti the Wycombe man was in our area. Elliott Moore came across but Mehmeti carried on almost to the bye-line. Marcus McGuane tracked back and covered David Wheeler so I’d lay no blame at MM’s door. Sam Long glanced at Sam Vokes then ran towards the ball, leaving the Wycombe number 9 with a tap in when the ball was pulled back to him. Ciaron Brown was then just arriving back into the area.

It’s hard to describe my anger when this happened. Wycombe were confident enough to leave Mehmeti ready to break. That meant with everyone pushed up and exposing ourselves we should have had an extra man. If we’re the passing team we’re supposed to be then why couldn’t we exploit this?

Had Robinson done any homework? Doesn’t he know how Wycombe play? Didn’t he know that Mehmeti is a big threat? Did he really think Anderson could handle him?

As the ball went in, the iFollow commentator said “It’s as easy as that”.

The scorer is an ex-Premier League forward playing regularly. Just saying.

The second goal is proof indeed that Wycombe don’t play football, that they are anti-football. They knocked it around neatly and unflustered in their own half. Did we have an organised press? Don’t think so. When McGuane did go towards Jack Grimmer it was with utmost ease that he was able to roll the ball back to his keeper. With his second touch Stryjek went long aiming down their left flank. Anderson had two opponents near him. Vokes used his head to move the ball on to the second who happened to be Mehmeti. He was away and even though Anderson got back, he might as well have headed for the changing rooms. Mehmeti cut back and the gap between him and our supposed defender was then a few yards. Plenty of room for a shot and what a great shot it was. 2-0 and totally deserved.

Mehmeti continued to cause us enormous headaches.

There was a change of personnel in our back four at the break. Anderson didn’t return. He was replaced by Brandon Fleming. I’m sure Anderson has real talent but the way he is being deployed and particularly so here, he is not being used anywhere near effectively. We could be destroying him.

At no time in this game did we get down the wings. Wycombe swarmed all over us legally and prevented us from doing so.

Although I wouldn’t rate any player anywhere near as low as a 3 out of 10 that’s what I would give the team performance as a whole. Mostly down to Robinson in my book.

No partnerships have been formed on the pitch.

We don’t have a settled side.

We don’t keep clean sheets.

If a team sets up well and works hard it is not that difficult for them to keep a clean sheet.

Individually at times I didn’t think the defenders did too badly and there were brief glimpses of Sam Long bringing the ball forward hoping to get things going. Good luck with that Sam.

For me though our best player by far was Lewis Bate. So much more accomplished than the rest. If only he had more to work with. At 1-0 he set up Billy Bodin who put his shot just inches wide and in the second half, after a positive run and great ball control, laid on another very good chance for Joseph. That was also missed.

Although we didn’t look like breaking through Wycombe’s rear guard at least Wildschut gave a slight indication that he might do so. Against Ipswich he’d proven that he could.

Yet in the 61^st minute Robinson removed him. Why? Can’t he last any longer? If not why not? It’s about a month since he’s been back. And if it was tactical I think Robinson needs a bloody good look at himself. On came Matty Taylor who we all know has been ineffectual for ages and looks way past his peak. At the same time Gatlin O’Donkor replaced McGuane. My level of anger rose a few more degrees. I’d not thought that possible.

Salarysport.com is about the best set of information I can find on players’ wages. It seems about right but there’s no verification that it is accurate.

It shows Wycombe’s total wage bill as £3,312,920 per year and ours as £4,791,800 although it can be very skewed by loan signings when parent clubs may pay a significant proportion of a player’s wages. Also it’s a bit out of date so a very big caveat here. Other than that I wonder which club has used their budget more wisely and got the better deals.

Jodi Jones joins Notts County on loan for the rest of the season. From the official OUFC site: “Jones will link up with Notts for the second half of the season, looking to add firing power to their already prolific attack.” Fire power! Someone having a laugh here? If he’s got fire power then why hasn’t it been unleashed here? Firepower we have not witnessed this season. “Karl Robinson told us: “Jodi’s not been able to get the minutes he would have liked with us …”. And the reason he has not got the minutes is that he has not been picked. And who picks the team?

Jones was shown as being on £2,100 a week. Why the **** did we sign him? Has something happened that we don’t know about?

Josh Murphy is on £5,100 a week. We’ve not seen him since he went off with just over a quarter of an hour to go at Fleetwood. There was no mention that he was injured in the previews to this and the previous game. Once more, what’s going on?

Sam Baldock is on £3,600 a week. Sometimes it is mentioned that “he is making good progress”. Sometimes there’s nothing on him. 327 days and counting since he kicked a ball for us. A very rough calculation and a few assumptions gets to a figure of £168k cost to the club in wages alone with no return whatsoever. I feel for the guy but ……

James Henry is on £4,100 a week. Out with a calf injury at the moment. When we last saw him he appeared to be in need of a recharging of the batteries.

I play walking football with a load of guys who support many different teams including some who are not Premier League giants. I chatted to a Pompey supporter about John Mousinho. I’d already picked up that many Portsmouth fans were really underwhelmed and far from happy about this appointment. He told me that Mous has already spotted a deficiency in the way their defence was set up and has rectified it. Two wins is two wins even if they were only against Exeter and Fleetwood. Two games in which they let in zero goals.

I don’t know how influential Mous was at Oxford given that he wasn’t the manager or even Assistant manager. Possibly he was getting a bit frustrated. He’s got all his coaching badges, seems an intelligent and likeable man with quiet but strong ambition. In that conversation I had with my fellow walking footballer it just slipped out, “I’d rather have Mous than Robbo”.

Writing all of this I kind of think I’m being a little bit disloyal but they’re my genuine feelings at this point in time so no point pretending otherwise.

For all this I’ll be at Burton on Saturday. I feel that OUFC is as much a part of me now as ever, if not more so. When the Council agreed to proceed with negotiations on the Triangle I was elated even though it was a very small first hurdle. So much so that I had to have a sneaky little whisky in celebration before my lift arrived to take me to Adams Park.

What we need to happen now is for there to be more and bigger bursts of euphoria as we approach each one of the many larger obstacles we need to get over.

Alongside this some such elation on the playing side wouldn’t go amiss.

Burton are second bottom of the table. They’ve lost their last three games without scoring a goal. 1-0 to League 2 Grimsby in the FA Cup, 5-0 at Morecambe and when they last played on 14 January 4-0 at home to Shrewsbury.

If we don’t turn them over – and surely we’ve got the quality in the squad to do it – the air on the away terraces could turn quite blue. The bookies don’t think it is a done deal though. Corals and Ladbrokes are both offering 6/4 on Oxford coming out on top.