FAN’S VIEW: 24/25 – No.38: WEST BROM AWAY

WEST BROMWICH ALBION 2 OXFORD UNITED 0

We knew this season was likely to be a long hard slog. That’s how it’s turning out and we’re currently going through a very painful period. Three points from the last six games. Four games without a goal scored and here we did not have a single shot on target. That’s just not good enough.

I’m not enjoying it at present and feeling a bit out of sorts didn’t help but its football and you drag yourself along. And if I were asked whether I would rather us be flying along in L1 playing attractively and banging in loads of goals than struggling like we are in the Championship, my answer would be no because I want us to be competing at the highest level possible.

Clubs like Albion are much bigger than us and will have a bigger wage bill than we do but they’ve not splashed loads of cash on transfer fees by Championship standards. Tammer Bany, Mikey Johnson and Isaac Price were each brought in for somewhere in the £3m-£4m range. Okay, the biggest fees we’ve paid for our current squad don’t match that but Ole Romeny was €2m, Siriki Dembele over £1m and Peter Kioso £820k.

Why such a big gap between the two sides? We do not look like a Championship outfit to me at the moment. With this win West Brom went back into the top six so they are that bit better than the average in tier two but on current form we’re nowhere near being good enough to be considered average.

It’s the same old issues over and over again. We do things badly, our opponents don’t. We make lots of mistakes, our opponents don’t. We don’t do things quickly, our opponents do. We never look at ease, our opponents do. We rarely find space, our opponents do.

We were up against it from the off. We try to play out from the back and can’t do it. We’re not good enough to do that at this level. The player unfortunate enough to receive the ball has hardly any options and almost never any that will take us forward with the first building blocks of creating an attack. West Brom just didn’t give us any space. By contrast I’ve no idea what we were up to in making it difficult for them to play. Were they ever under any pressure on the ball? We didn’t really press and get in their faces. The alternative to that is dropping off and getting everyone behind the ball and to be fair they weren’t constantly carving us open, although it looked as if that could have happened given how easy it had been for them to undo us and take the lead through Alex Mowatt as early as the 11^th minute.  

In total they had 22 shots, five of which were on target. They had 13 corners, we had two. Jamie Cumming took 17 goal-kicks, Joe Wildsmith, the Baggies keeper, just four. I doubt he’ll have done less for his wages on any other weekend this season.

Although we’re incapable of playing out from the back we’ve got no alternative that’s effective in getting attacks going. No Greg Leigh, no option to find his head out wide on the left on the half way line and, as I’ve said before, that just meant we took a little longer before we lost possession.

Down the middle if we go long we’ve got absolutely nothing. Doesn’t matter who we play there it doesn’t work. Ole Romeny had that role on Saturday. Briefly on a couple of occasions he looked a class above everything around him, but only briefly and that was when he’d gone out wide.

The two wide players in the three were Shemmy Placheta and Matt Phillips. Placheta never really got going but that can be said for just about everyone when it came to attacking. As for Phillips, at the moment I really can’t see what he is offering. I didn’t think he was putting himself about, making a nuisance of himself and getting wholeheartedly stuck into challenges let alone showing quality on the ball. But no way is it right for any of our fans to boo him. Noticeably he got a warm round of applause from the home fans when he was replaced in the 64^th minute. He didn’t get similar from the away following. Chatting to West Brom supporters before the game their view was that he’d been good for them in the past but he’s had his day. On the evidence from him in an Oxford shirt so far I can’t disagree with the last bit of their assertion. It should also be said that his replacement Stan Mills didn’t stand out. 

When we’re down in the doldrums I usually try to find a few positives to cling on to. I’m struggling here. A mate does this even more so than I and regularly I don’t agree with his assessment. At times rather too positive for me when I think the facts point to a more realistic downbeat outlook. All that he could come up with after this was that we were “in the game” right up until the end. The tiniest crumb of optimism.

In a way that’s true. Albion’s second arrived in the 11^th minute of added time when they ran the ball into an empty net after Cumming had gone up for a corner and we were hoping for the most unlikely and undeserved of equalisers. I suppose it can be argued that a team “is in the game” if they are only a goal down but I think a case can be equally made that we were “never in the game”. 

The back line deserves some credit to be fair. They did a reasonable job defensively and Cumming wasn’t required to make save after save. Joe Bennett, on his return after a very lengthy lay off, showed that he knows the left back role really well as one would expect with his experience. Slight concern that he might get done for pace in a race against a wide man. But are we cursed? He didn’t quite make it unscathed through the entire game meaning we ended with just 10 on the pitch having used all of our subs. Was it a foolhardy decision expecting him to go the full distance? A risk too far? How long will he be out this time? Will we see him in an Oxford shirt again? You have to feel for the guy and wish him all the best for a speedy recovery.

I’ve mentioned the defence, the wide men and the striker so far. That leaves Tyler Goodrham who played centrally in the three and the pairing of Cameron Brannagan and Alex Matos. I don’t think that’s TG’s best position and I’d go for the Brannagan/Will Vaulks combination as my preference. Whenever we bring in a new player my attitude is always let’s wait and see but I do try to focus quickly on the positives (that word again). With Matos I liked his energy and the way he battled. I’m not noticing that now. In fact I’m noticing very little from most of them.

It’s currently a hard gig being an Oxford United player. Of course it. This is our first season back in the second best league in England. “We’ve got too many League One players” was a comment I heard from someone near me.

If we step back though and take time to consider the whole of the Championship it’s obvious that not all of our 23 rivals are of the Leeds/Sheffield United/Burnley standard or even that of those in the pack just below, such as WBA. (I’ll gloss over the fact that Pompey beat us the previous week).

My son commented that there are some really crappy teams in the Championship and much as it hurt me to say it (on current form) we’re one of those teams. His response was “yes but we’ve got more points than them and they’re not going to catch us up”. To my “but what if they hit a run of good form?” he countered with “we’re as likely to hit good form as them”. This cheered me up no end.

The bottom three have all played the same number of games as we have, 34, leaving 12 remaining. Luton have 28 points, Derby 29 and Plymouth 30. We have 38 points in the bank. Primary school maths tells that’s 10, nine and eight these teams need to make up on us.

Luton have picked up only three points from their last 12 games. For a team in receipt of parachute payments that is astonishing. I’ve kept thinking that they’ve got to come good at some stage. Too late now. They were well outplayed by Watford on Sunday.

Derby have been slightly better than the Hatters over the same period, gaining five points. I think Kemar Roofe is a panic signing. He was without a club for a reason.

Then there’s Argyle. They’ve done better, averaging a point a game over the last 12 and are likely the biggest danger of the three in the drop zone. I’ve convinced myself they’re distracted by their FA Cup exploits but the proof will be what happens after they get back to league football after their trip to the Etihad this coming Saturday. Three days later they travel to Hull who are one of the three teams immediately below us in the table. All three have played one game fewer than us.

Over our last 12 games we’ve accumulated 17 points. That obviously includes some of the Gary Rowett honeymoon period. It’s the last half dozen or so games that worry me. They show our current direction of travel.

Here’s a few quotes from the BBC match report. “The result provided further evidence that the bounce delivered by Gary Rowett’s appointment at Oxford in December has flattened, with this defeat a sixth league game without a win. More worryingly the goals have dried up, with Rowett’s side scoring just once in their past six games. With Oxford winning just one game away from home all season the travelling support will have experienced an all-too familiar sinking feeling when they fell behind after just 11 minutes”.

However bad three other teams are – and I’ve been looking for three that fit that particular bill from the start of the season – if we don’t score again we’ll go down.

Goals come in many varieties. I’ve been trying to work out our most likely way of getting one.

Retaining possession, moving the ball about and playing through the opposition back line before smashing it home or passing it into the net? Very unlikely. We can’t keep the ball.

A mazy dribble from a tricky wide man beating opponent after opponent before slotting home? Very unlikely. When that’s tried the ball is always eventually lost.

Someone coming in from the flanks and bending the ball into the far corner? We’ve done this in the past and it’s more likely but I’m not holding my breath.

A Cameron Brannagan thump from just outside the box? He’s not getting shots away at the moment and has only scored one since the first day of the season. So unlikely.

A cross with someone nodding home. If we’d not been so crap with the final heading bit against Portsmouth I would possibly have said “the most likely”. Those misses are still giving me nightmares.

A penalty? Don’t make me laugh.

And for me the most likely – getting on the end of a corner or free-kick played into the penalty area or forcing the ball home when the defence fails to clear effectively. It’s a percentage thing. So I don’t get why we still persist in playing free-kicks backwards and sideways when we could launch it. The answer to that is because we can get caught out on the counter attack. True, but what a sad indictment. We’re nowhere near as good without Elliott Moore in these situations. I want him back ASAP, provided he’s fit of course. Greg Leigh’s head is also a loss.

From time to time the unlikely does happen. Let that be so against Coventry please. But they’re a point outside the top six and have won six of their last seven league games. Their only defeat was to Leeds. I’m amazed it is possible to get 11/10 on a Sky Blues victory.

Even though this was a 3 o’clock kick-off (now there’s a fine thing) there was no quick pub crawl. It was the Vine and that was it. A pub I went in when we played there in the cup in 2014. An interesting establishment. There’s a traditional bit to it with three small rooms off a corridor then a larger area with a bar but not many seats. Carry on and it opens up into a large dining area and beyond that a very sizeable outdoor drinking space. The aromas of the Indian food were most enticing.

They only had one real ale on which ran out but not feeling on top form, that was no problem to me. I do like a Jameson Irish whiskey. It is a pub that is recommended for away fans. Both sets of supporters mixing and, at an uneducated guess, I’d say there were a few hundred customers in there. There were plenty of friendly security guys wandering around and given the number of drinkers and eaters present that was very much the sensible approach. It’s good to be welcomed on someone else’s turf. So don’t abuse it. Show some respect. Behave. There’s often a very small minority who will spoil it for the majority. I don’t know who they were and I didn’t pay much attention to them but I was embarrassed when “West Brom’s a shit hole, I wanna go home” hit the air. They wouldn’t shut up and security rightly moved them on. I was informed that the same group had been a similar nuisance elsewhere. If you want to go home then please do. There’s nothing stopping you. You’d be doing plenty of people a favour.