FAN’S VIEW: 24/25 – No.14: DERBY AT HOME

OXFORD UNITED 1 DERBY COUNTY 1

I went into the Catherine Wheel before the game for the first time this season to see what it is all about now. Disappointingly no real ale. Ran out just before I arrived apparently. Didn’t they know there was a game on? Guinness at £5.20 it was then. It was fine in its own way. It was left to settle before the pouring was finished but why oh why “extra cold”? It’s all over the place. If I wanted an ice cold drink that would be for the summer and with the sun blaring down it wouldn’t be Guinness. Why chill the taste out of a drink with character and flavour when kept properly?

Walking back to Sandford after the game I missed a lot of the post-match analysis and fans comments but heard a fair bit once back at the car and from what Mrs FV relayed to me as she listened on portable radio (who still has such a thing?) through headphones. Have to say that generally I was in almost total agreement with what was said about the game and where we are at thus far into the season. Which is a bit surprising. One thing I didn’t get however, was the suggestion that Peter Kioso should have been rested.

No way did he look jaded. He’s been playing very well and is pretty quick which is a genuine asset for a full-back detailed to get forward in certain periods of the game. That pace was put to good effect getting in one tremendous block against the Rams. A man of the match contender for me.

In my mind the others up for that meaningless honour were all defenders – Elliott Moore the sponsors’ choice and Ciaron Brown. Not mentioning Ben Nelson in the same breath may raise some eyebrows. He’s a real asset no doubt about that and is already a very good defender, having quickly formed an understanding with our captain. Mistakes were the name of the game in this one though and he made a couple of bad ones early on giving the ball away. Thankfully we didn’t get punished. It’s wonderful to watch him bringing the ball out from the back, striding majestically down the centre of the pitch but I’m always a bit concerned that he’s about to over run it. So if giving marks out of 10 he would be, say, 0.5 behind the others.

It’s also noticeable that Elliott Moore was bringing the ball out in similar fashion but for some reason I was never quite as worried about him losing it. Perhaps no logic to that but it was just how I felt.

Clearly the centre halves are under instruction to do this. We’ve had a few years without it. Back to the days of Rob Dickie, Rob Atkinson and Luke McNally.

It felt like there were more errors in the first half let alone the whole match than we’d committed all season – but it wasn’t just us. Derby were at it too. Poor passing. Losing the ball. Players seeming to run into trouble instead of making a simple pass to retain possession. Highlights packages of course don’t show this and portray something entirely different.

It felt more like L1 than Championship. Someone joked that Derby had dragged us down to their level. They would no doubt think we’d done that to them. There were times when I thought they were quite neat on the ball and perhaps over the 90 minutes were a bit better than us but I’m not sure. They were probably the worst side we’ve faced this season so far though.

Of course we were both L1 last season. Could that perhaps explain it? Although I never felt the same earlier this month when we drew away at Portsmouth who came up as Champions. My son who watched the Pompey match on Sky said that it was quite a scrappy game, something I may have overlooked with the atmosphere and euphoria of the equaliser. Pompey are currently bottom with a goal difference of minus 12.

It may be that as summer has turned to autumn and we’re just over a quarter of the way through the season that I’ve realised I’ve been wearing rose tinted glasses when it comes to our new elevated level. True or not I’m still loving it and recognise the quality of product on offer and the gripping entertainment that Championship footballers provide for the paying spectator, even if I did leave feeling more disappointed than I’d done at any other match this season. Which I know doesn’t make sense as we’ve lost three league games and at Coventry in the League Cup – but when has football ever made sense?

It must be said that if you watch lots of Championship games on TV most of them will have quite a few mistakes in them too but when it’s not your team they don’t really register and why would they? Wednesday night Tahith Chong’s cock-up which led to Sunderland’s winner for example.

We approached this game a little differently than others at home. Kicking to the empty end as ever in the first half but this time instead of sitting back we seemed more intent on attacking than is usual. Was that because we really did look on Derby as L1 and thought we could just do them? (No of course not. Only joking. Would not say we should be “beating the likes of”)

We did reap our rewards very early on. 1-0 up in the 12^th minute and what a goal it was. We kept the ball really well. Brown gave it to Dane Scarlett who came short to receive it with a marker tracking him. His touch wasn’t great but Brown picked it up again and played it square to Will Vaulks who stretched to retain it. The ball was then moved forward to Tyler Goodrham. A defender tried a half grapple but Goodrham, with exceptional balance, stayed on his feet and gave the ball to Idris El Mizouni. Our no.15 had lots of space to his left. He knocked it to Siriki Dembele and was immediately off and pointing. Dembele obliged perfectly and his first time low ball into the penalty area was met brilliantly by Scarlett angling it in by the far post.

You don’t see goals like that in L1.

The way we were playing, with the mistakes never being stamped out, a second goal was very much needed to seal the deal. Given our defending I think the three points would then very much have been ours. Without it I didn’t have the greatest of confidence.

That goal didn’t come of course. We went close a couple of times – both Goodrham efforts, one of which we nearly got someone on the end of to convert.

At the other end Jamie Cumming had to make something of an unconventional block to keep our goal intact.

We therefore began the second half a goal up but our sloppy play continued and 10 minutes after the restart had gifted the visitors the equaliser. Moore hooked the ball away from not far off the corner flag with Derby’s Ben Osbourn getting his head on the clearance. It then came to Vaulks who knocked it back into our penalty area. We were all over the place. Brown sort of got a head on it without really getting a head on it and Jerry Yates then poked it to Nathaniel Mendez-Laing who finished clinically. “Loose ball from Vaulks” said the commentator on the extended highlights. Not for the first time unfortunately. His errors are costing us.

I’m not sure what Derby’s game plan was from here on in. There were a couple of occasions when it looked like they might be really trying to get at us and go for it but nothing sustained and at the end they and their fans seemed pretty pleased with a point. Fair play to their travelling support who were at times quite noisy. To be fair so were ours. Yet at other times it went eerily quiet. Spooky – as was the trek from pub to ground – quite dark and very few people around as we left it rather late for us. There’s still over a week to Halloween too.

Neither keeper was really extended with any further efforts on goal being relatively easily dealt with. This included a Scarlett free-kick and a Jacob Widell Zetterstrom stop from a Louie Sibley shot. The ball came back off the keeper. Perhaps if Owen Dale had reacted a split second quicker we may have benefited. The second half saw yet another Goodrham shot from distance going just wide.

Even though, as is our way, we applied more pressure in the final 5-10 minutes, nothing came of it this time.

Derby had a couple of half chances too but on reflection a draw was probably a fair result although having had the time to think about it for us to have taken nothing from the game would have been unjust.

The stats show an even game. We had 51.5% possession and took 11 shots, three of which were on target. They had 17 shots going one better with accuracy than us. Touches in the opposition box came out fairly similar to the previous game. We had 14 to their 29. We only had one corner and they had six.

The number of aerial duels won is quite telling. There were 39 in total. That’s a lot isn’t it? Lower league football? Anyway we won 23 of them. Our centre-halves are good at that.

I’ve heard a number of people say – and I wouldn’t necessarily have disagreed with them – that Cameron Brannagan is no longer an absolute shoo in to start every game when fit given the strength and depth of squad we now have. However I thought this game was crying out for him. Hope he’s back soon. I don’t like this mounting injury list and the players we’re without. Przemyslaw Placheta, Matt Phillips, Kyle Edwards. How long is Dembele going to join them for? And when will they all become available again?

We’re now unbeaten in five but have not won in six. The BBC web site with the league tables includes the last six game in with defeats being shown as red, draws being in grey and green for a win. Two teams have no greens, us and second bottom QPR.

No need to panic but the first feelings of “we need a win” are starting to form. I commented that we can’t just draw every game and expect to stay up. My son, as he is often wont to do, pointed out that if we did indeed pick up a point from every remaining game we would finish on 49 points, which would take us close.

Last season 51 points were needed for survival. Some previous seasons have been greatly skewed by points being deducted. In 22/23 45 points was enough to stay up but without deductions 51 would have been required. In 21/22 just 38 would have sufficed but the points taken away for misdemeanours were massive. Reading, the owners being serial offenders, lost 6 but that was insignificant compared to what Derby had to suffer. They had 21 points taken away. Even if those points had been given back, 49 would have meant no relegation.

Obviously I don’t want to be in a position to have to find out if 49 would mean Championship football next season. The only team to have had a deduction this campaign is Sheffield United who have had two removed. They’re at the other end of the table and I don’t think there’s anything else in the pipeline. So it’s all down to what happens on the pitch.

The next pitch the Yellows take to is that at the Stadium of Light on Saturday to face Sunderland. The Black Cats are top having won every home game except for a 2-2 draw with Leeds. In the other four games they kept clean sheets. On Wednesday they won 2-1 at Luton. The Hatters were all over them but Sunderland held firm and scored a goal of quality and even when Luton equalised they just went and scored again and then controlled a lot of the game. The mark of a very good side. That’s what we’re in the Championship for, to play against teams like this. Bring it on. Paddy Power are only offering 1/2 for a Sunderland win. We’re 4/1. If teams have realistic ambitions for promotion they should be beating “teams like Oxford” should they not? Come on you underdogs. Underdogs that are still, after 12 games, just five points off the drop zone and play-off places. I’ll say it yet again. Very tight division is this. As demonstrated by the results on Tuesday – of six games played four were draws. And of the entire midweek fixtures, when there was a win all but one were by a single goal margin.