It has been a very sad and sobering fortnight since we last played. Plenty of time for much needed reflection, not for the first time this season and very unlikely to be the last, to realise where football fits into our lives and how it pales into insignificance when compared to the truly important things. That saying, which I’ve quoted before: “football is the most important of the least important things in life”, is very much pertinent. Football brings people together, in friendship and rivalry and through it a fan of many years will meet and get to know so many like-minded people, get pleasure from watching highly skilled athletes perform week after week in teams put together by coaches and managers who, whatever we like to think, know so much more than we do.
In all this we have to remember that each and every one of them are human beings just like the rest of us, subject to the same stresses of life and no more immune from the misfortunes that can befall anyone at any time.
There’s no point pretending that he was a favourite ex manager amongst our fan base after departing to Bristol City after such a short space of time with us but that is absolutely irrelevant when it comes to what he and his wife have just gone through – the loss of their baby son Theo. No words can really describe the emotions they must be going through. Turmoil. Disbelief. Heartbreak. All we can do is wish them well in the times ahead as they try get over this as far as possible. My heart goes out to them.
Like everyone else I was totally stunned. I picked this devastating news up via social media. It took a few words for me to realise what had happened then a few seconds more for it to sink in. So much has been said since his passing that anything I’ll say will just be repetitive but to me even though he was only ever with us on loan he felt very much like one of our own. I always looked on him as an “Oxford player” even if we had to borrow him from Milton Keynes. The family are local, from Steeple Claydon. That’s closer to MK than it is to Oxford but even that doesn’t change how I feel.
George played the first half of the 2014/15 season in L1 with MK Dons and the second half in L2 with us. The following campaign he was with us up until the transfer window, still in L2. MK recalled him in the January transfer window and he was a Championship player from February onwards. I still have a fairly vivid recollection of his attacking prowess down the right and the partnership and understanding he formed with Kemar Roofe. They were playing Championship football in L2. They gave us a glimpse of what we’ve now got every game. Thanks so much for the memories.
Panathinaikos deserve a mention here. They’re a club with strong values and compassionate ownership and are going to honour the remaining three years of George’s contract meaning his fiancé and one-year-old son will be helped financially. There’s also talk of the club organising a benefit match next year.
A remarkable lady who seemed to have been around as a fan as long as I’ve been watching the Yellows and that my friends is a very long time. She was “Jackie’s Mum, “Rita’s Mum.” I’d see her at home games at the Manor, at home games at the Kassam and at away games all over the country from the 1970s onwards. She followed the club through thick and thin. In all that time I never heard her say a bad word about the team or any player. I remember seeing her in Bicester in Tesco and at Bicester North Station where she worked for a while. Always a quick chat about Oxford United. It’s hard to believe that she was 86 years old. I tend to forget that other people are aging at the same rate as me.
She was a wife, mother, grandmother, great grandmother and Oxford United supporter through and through. A Yellow forever. She will be greatly missed by her family and fellow Oxford United supporters.
A few tears have come to my eyes in the last couple of weeks, I’ll admit.
This really is a hard one to reach conclusions on. Almost as soon as I was forming my “view” I was challenging it. A mate said he’d have to go away and think about it before he could form an opinion. A neutral who used to be on the books of some top football clubs in the UK that I’ve got to know through walking football thought that Oxford were very much second best and got lucky, having had just one shot on goal. I pointed out that West Brom didn’t have many either. He said “yes but they did have more and move the ball quicker than Oxford”. At the other end of the scale my son put forward a convincing argument that we were very much worth a point particularly given how we played in the second half.
In the first half I detected a difference in class between the two sides. The way they were indeed passing the ball around in a much slicker way than we were and looked much more assured in possession. I even wondered if we looked a little bit League One-ish. When we put a sequence of passes together it was quite laboured and didn’t have the natural flow our opponents had.
I heard a couple of fans say “best team we’ve played yet.” Not for the first time this season and probably not the last. We are still to play Leeds and Sheffield United and go to table topping Sunderland next week. So, WBA on a par with Burnley? And on the day better than the other three teams to have come to OX4 thus far.
I thought Albion’s shape was excellent. A back line of four that gave us nowhere to go and for the most part in the first two thirds of the game in particular never really allowed our really skilful talent to get going. But we need to remember this, our game plan is never to go gung ho from the off. After all this is the Championship. Play sensibly and don’t leave yourself open. Don’t worry if your opponents have the ball as long as you’ve got yourself set up solidly from a defensive point of view and we have a very good back line ourselves. Peter Kioso, after a slightly wobbly start with us, now looks a great signing. In the other full-back position Ciaran Brown is really solid. The Elliott Moore/Ben Nelson centre-half partnership already looks to be a properly sound pairing. Our captain has now got bags of experience and Nelson who is only 20 is going to be some player. Pity he’s only on loan.
West Brom seemed to have the numbers in midfield too and I heard a comment that we never get control of the midfield now. That is unlikely to happen much, if at all, at this level and again fits in with being happy with them having the ball.
Although we’re not as worried about possession stats as we used to be, we still prefer to play out from the back. The Baggies had a front three who set about not letting us go anywhere much. So Jamie Cumming had to go long more than we would have liked. Same old story, Mark Harris battles with a bigger centre-half, makes it difficult for him but usually comes out as the loser. There are times though when he does win the physical shoulder to shoulder battles. He did so with the game still scoreless, getting away from Semi Ajayi and on to a long ball from Nelson. His control was poor though and coming off his knee he had to chase a ball he should have had under his spell. He therefore ended up shooting from wide when he should have been bearing down on goal with the option of putting the ball either side of keeper Alex Palmer. The Albion no.1 made the save. No getting away from the fact that this wasn’t Championship standard from our no.9 who has now not scored in the last six games. Such breakaways were going to be rare, we needed to make the most of them.
That the referee let this shoulder to shoulder go appeared to be fine but he was really inconsistent. Some he let go; some he penalised. Many looked about the same. In the second half Harris appeared to have done the same again – both players putting it in equally. Our man got away again. Leigh Doughty blew his whistle and gave West Brom a free-kick much to the frustration of Harris, the fans and Des Buckingham. Our manager’s frustration resulting in a yellow card.
If I were to take time to watch the whole game back again I’d likely think Mr Doughty was better than I’d thought at the time with the yellow tint on my glasses not so pronounced away from the immediate action, but he did seem to make random decisions when bodies got tangled and at least twice ignored our guys being taken out off the ball. There was one when Siriki Dembele was stopped in this way when there was a good chance of him and Harris getting away together just inside the West Brom half (perhaps we did have more breakaways/potential breakaways than I’d first thought).
This wasn’t really Dembele’s day though and at times it did appear that stronger opponents were winning out, sometimes quite legally.
For the WBA goal in the 29th minute it was Dembele who was robbed. Some thought it was a foul. I didn’t. Be more robust if you can. And don’t fanny about with the ball? Too harsh probably but I was a bit annoyed about how we gave them the opportunity. Uros Racic then played a one-two with Grady Diangana who was bought for £18m from WHU in 2020. With the outside of his foot Diangana found Karlan Grant with no Oxford player near-by. From 20 yards outside the penalty area he teed it up and then hit a low accurate shot in off the post past the despairing dive of Cumming. It was a quality finish the likes of which you don’t see lower down the pyramid.
Not long after we’d gone behind Kioso was bursting forward. That would not have happened if it had remained goal-less. Perhaps the timing of our game plan had been brought forward.
Brown sent a header over the bar from a corner. Albion had had a similar effort a little earlier. Are near post corners making a comeback? We’ll even be seeing those flick-ons of old soon too.
It was important that we got to the break just the one behind, which we did.
As the second half got underway we began nicking the ball off them more and they were more uncertain in their play. Still a danger though as Nelson had to block a shot with some venom in it from Grant.
We began to press more. Dembele put a cross in which was missed by everyone. It wasn’t dealt with by the defence. They were getting bodies back but were not getting the ball clear.
Dembele was replaced by Malcolm Ebiowei, who so far has no way looked up to it, in the 74th minute. Ten minutes earlier Harris and Ruben Rodrigues had gone off. Dane Scarlett and Louie Sibley coming on.
I thought RR had had a pretty good game. He’s quite good at organising and pointing where his team mates need to be to block space and positions himself to do just that – all the unspectacular stuff that needs to be done to get some reward. I would have kept him on over Idris El Mizouni who lasted until the 84th minute when he made way for Owen Dale. Des knows what he’s doing and we all know we go again on Tuesday night against the Rams.
Albion never stopped playing neat football but in the latter stages of the game we began to apply more pressure. I honestly couldn’t see a goal coming though. But never give up.
Five minutes were added and with nearly two of those having ticked by we won a throw. The Will Vaulks long throw is a weapon not to be sniffed at. We sent bodies forward. He hurled it in but just look at the size of some of those defenders. Moore made a determined jump and nodded it on. Scarlett in the penalty area with his head. No miss here. He’d leapt well having made the slightest intelligent movement to lose his marker and give Palmer no chance.
It had been all about staying in the game and that’s exactly what we’d done.
I think we’ll see quite a lot more from our Tottenham loanee and the deliverer of the throw deserves mention here too. Vaulks didn’t half put a shift in. How many headers did he win in midfield?
A player who I have not yet mentioned is Tyler Goodrham. I have to rectify that. His value must be rising by the week. One of the most reliable players in the team and he’s playing like a really seasoned professional at just 21 years old.
Given West Brom’s proficiency when they had the ball it’s worth asking why they didn’t really go for us and try to get a second and kill us off. Well perhaps they did the best they could but given our defensive shape and work rate just were not capable of doing more than they did. Or were even a little worried that if they came at us we would get them on the break.
Anyway, we got that point and preserved our unbeaten home record.
As time has passed I’m coming round much more to the view that we deserved that point.
Time to look at the stats.
Oxford had 50.7% possession.
We had 12 shots with three on target. They had the same number on target but took two more.
There was though quite a difference in the number of touches each side had in their opponent’s box. We had 16, they had 33 but with lots of defenders back and in good positions that’s not that meaningful.
So overall pretty even as the score suggests.
Finally, and I just have to come back to this again: fans leaving before the end. Just look at the goal on the highlights clip. Lots of empty seats behind Vaulks in the North Stand as he takes the throw and in the gap between that and the East Stand people can be seen walking away. WTF. Missed the equaliser. Missed the late drama. Missed Scarlett’s first goal for the club. How many people leave the cinema with a film just reaching its climax? How many people get up and leave the theatre with five minutes of a play remaining? Surely there should have been no rush as we’d kicked off at 12:30 meaning there was still most of the afternoon before us.
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