FAN’S VIEW 22/23 – No.40 – LINCOLN AWAY

The Build Up

I honestly don’t know what to make of it all at present. Of course Robbo had to go, no question whatsoever. However until we get a permanent replacement what’s going to change? What will Craig Short and co. do differently? They’ve only got the same players to work with, provided they’re fit of course.

Sam Baldock, Josh Murphy, Tyler Smith and Billy Bodin aren’t fit. Contribution of the first three this season has been about ****** all. One of the absolutely key problems that needs fixing under a new regime is recruitment and retention/release which equates to a much wiser spending of future playing budgets.

Will we now be keeping clean sheets? Thus far we’ve managed that in 8.8% of our games (3 from 34). Or looking at it another way we’ve conceded 91.2% of the time. Only the abysmal Forest Green are worse: 5.9% (2 from 34). The third worst performers in this regard are Morecambe: 15.2% (5 from 33). Top of the pile Sheffield Wednesday have a shut out rate of 56.3% (18 from 32). What a difference.

At the other end of the park we’re not quite so bad in that we’ve only failed to score 35.3% of the time (12 from 34). Eight clubs, including our opponents here, come out worse than us. The team that are third best at this are the Owls on 15.6%. (Just 5 from 32). No wonder they’re top. It must be remembered though that we kept them out at Hillsborough to get a point. Ipswich are even better at this having only not scored three times in 33 games. That’s just 9.1% of the time.

But hey, that is the past. We can only get better and these are the targets we need to aspire to. Except for now it is purely and simply a case of getting enough points to stay up and games are running out.

My thinking is that we now need a manager that leans towards the old school way of pragmatic thinking – forget pretty football, grind results out, be horrible, get the job done. That person though is unlikely to be the one needed to get us competitive at the other end of the table and get the lost supporters flocking back to watch the team with expectation and enthusiasm. What a dilemma.

This is a really weird fixture to start the post Karl era. How can a team this deep into the season have only won three home games yet remain unbeaten on their own turf?

I don’t think I could have faced this fixture if the change hadn’t been made, but as it has, it would have been wrong of me not to turn up and support the boys.

Am I confident and do I feel re-energised? I’m afraid truthfully the answer is no but we shall see.

About to experience another afternoon of disappointment

Lincoln City 1 Oxford United 0

There’s no questioning the work-rate and the endeavour of every player in a black shirt. There’s no questioning we really gave it a go in the second half but at the end of the day it was for the umpteenth time in this horrible season the same outcome. No goals scored meaning the one conceded was enough to send us home empty handed and leaving us just four points above the relegation places with rivals having games in hand.

Defensively I thought we were basically fine and didn’t much look like conceding for most of the game, but when things aren’t going for you mistakes creep in and it can take just one which brings about the ultimate punishment. Also there are reasons for mistakes other than the obvious loss of confidence all round because of our current dreadful run of results and ineffective team play.

This was only referee Lewis Smith’s eight game in the EFL and it showed. Boy did it show. The sequence of events to the awarding of the Lincoln penalty went as follows. Sam Long appeared to have been fouled in the centre circle. Nothing given. The ball broke to Ben House who, instead of playing it, stepped across it and into Cameron Brannagan. Referees who don’t understand the game and its cheating dark arts give free-kicks for such things when if anything the award should be the other way. That’s why shithousery works. So free-kick to Lincoln. But hey, what do I know? I’m biased. We defended the dead ball by giving away a corner. From that we conceded the penalty which was despatched past Simon Eastwood. We did not clear the corner with any finality and Sam Long ended up kicking Daniel Mandroiu. A lack of concentration perhaps having felt aggrieved that decisions had not gone his and Oxford United’s way? Or just one of those things in that he just hadn’t seen the Imps no.19 on his blind side.

It was though a spot kick. We had claims for them too. A high boot near Elliott Moore’s head in the first half could have been given but the fact that our captain went down a second or so later when it didn’t appear that contact had actually been made didn’t help. In the second half a Lincoln defender used his arm below sleeve level to clear the ball. From where I was standing (yes standing, in the back row) it looked 100% deliberate. Just because the arm was right by his side and in what is termed a “natural position” (whatever that actually means) doesn’t make it a legal move, does it? I wouldn’t have expected these hopeless officials to have spotted it.

It wasn’t just the lack of penalties that irked me though. Moore jumps for a ball and wins it with the Lincoln player not doing the same but instead ducking his back to make it look like he was fouled. Smith buys it.

We hardly had a free-kick given our way in the first period but in the second we did get more. From one right close to the linesman on our side, Tyler Goodrham tried to run into position. A home defender standing next to him grabbed his shirt to stop him doing so. The linesman a yard or so away just looked on and did nothing to attract Smith’s attention. Perhaps if on every occasion this type of cheating was penalised with cards and free-kicks there might be a short time when we ended up with the most stop start of football matches and seven or eight a side, but in the long run the game would be all the better for it.

We came quite close to scoring as one would expect a team in an increasingly desperate situation to do as the clock was ticking down but for all that I genuinely think we are a team that “doesn’t look like scoring”. Doesn’t really make sense but that’s how I feel.

Carl Rushworth in the Lincoln goal did well to keep out a Yanic Wildschut shot low down by his right hand post and then there was that Gatlin O’Donkor diving header. But we don’t do goals.

We’ve got no finisher. That used to be Matty Taylor in seasons gone by but not now. The debate as to whether the reason for this was because he has lost sharpness and pace due to age or because he wasn’t getting any decent service doesn’t go away. My view is a bit of each but would point out that since he’s been on loan at Vale Park he’s played 374 minutes (excluding added time) and has found the back of the net not once.

We got a few good crosses into the box but without a tall strong centre-forward with notable heading ability they don’t have much value.

Not only are we not getting any goals from a strike force (what strike force??) the midfielders are not scoring either.

We never hit teams on the break. Whilst we’ve got a player or two who are no slouches, we no way seem as pacey as last season when Gavin Whyte, Mark Sykes and Ryan Williams were playing for us. Or is that just perception now that nothing is going right?

I wouldn’t say anyone in our ranks had a really good game and as the season wears on I’m becoming more and more disappointed with a number of them. If there’s any bright light it is fleeting and the flame soon dims to be hidden by the gloomy backdrop of the 22/23 version of Oxford United.

I’d pinned some hope on Kyle Joseph helping turn things around but he had a poor game here with the ball just not sticking. Marcus Browne has been a permanent yellow for over a year now. What has he brought to the party? Also Marcus McGuane, he’s been here quite a while now. I was expecting so much of him. He didn’t even get picked to start.

The team now need the fans to get behind them more than ever and I largely think this is what happened at Sincil Bank. 594 is a poor away following numbers wise when compared to previous seasons but not to be sniffed at given how awful we’ve been of late.

The singing was mostly supportive but the “Lincoln’s a shit hole, I want to go home” is more than embarrassing, particularly with that magnificent medieval gothic cathedral looking down on us. As I’ve said many a time all fans sing this yawn of a song. Our lot sing it “everywhere we go”.

Now for a little link back to Burton away. “When Saturday Comes” always features a “match of the month”.  These aren’t your Arsenal v Manchester City type of games but usually lower level fare where the writer gets to the heart of what unglamorous football is all about but means so much to the followers of the clubs involved. The featured game in the March edition is from January 28^th; the score Burton Albion 2 Oxford United 0.

A few quotes:

“Today’s opponents lack punch. Oxford United have often failed to make the technical quality in their squad tell on the scoreboard as demonstrated by another insipid loss to a streetwise Wycombe Wanderers last time out”

“For lots of young supporters, away days are an excuse to act up. Every club has its share of fresh-faced wannabe hooligans engaging in a form of pantomime aggro. The couple of Oxford United groups I encounter seem to inspire bemusement and pity from locals rather than the desired intimidation. Try as they might, their provocations are ignored by an indifferent world. Shouting “Burton’s a shithole I wanna go home” at a stationary bus elicits barely a glare from the handful of passengers inside”.

“Amid growing unrest, chants of “You scouse bastard, get out of our club” and “Sacked in the morning” are frequently heard coming from the East Terrace”.

“As they await the inevitable, Oxford’s fans entertain themselves by flinging a sex doll around, baiting Robinson and chanting how terrible their team is”.

Well Robbo has gone now. It took too long as I’ve said quite a few times but I can’t be doing with the personal abuse. Express disapproval yes, but what logic is there in “scouse bastard” being sung?

After this game it was all very different. A large number of our travellers gave our players genuine applause when they came over at the final whistle. It was heart-warming. I joined in and it wasn’t forced. For me it was as if to say we’re all in this together we’ll be there next week and then the week after in Morecambe. Even though we know you’ve been pretty shit we know that you know that too. We also know you gave your all and sensible fans know that having a go, particularly on a personal level, isn’t going to help one little bit.

That’s why one supporter, who gave James Henry some abuse not once but twice until our number 17 turned round to see where it was coming from, was turned on by quite a few around him. There’s still so much tension and anger out there and one or two will be looking to place the blame at someone else’s door now that KR has been sacked. We’ve all got to hold our nerve however difficult it might be.

By the way Henry’s sin was mis-hitting a corner. I thought he was arguably our best player. Like everyone else he did a few bad things but also got some good balls into the box. I didn’t notice his abuser clapping when this happened.

Relegation? My gut feeling is 50:50 and that’s possibly being overly optimistic. There’s not the slightest argument though that our horrendous form over the last nine games makes it a 100% certainty unless that rot is stopped.

That’s rather difficult to achieve with Derby next visiting the Kassam.