Stanley Mills fires a shot at goal (photo: Steve Daniels)

Well that was all a bit disappointing. Following the euphoria of Friday’s win over Southampton the side reverted to type and came back down to earth with defeat against a, frankly, not very good Swansea side. The first game of the second half of the season and already a supposed relegation rival has done the double over us.

As always, I’ve taken a bit of time to reflect before writing this, otherwise my original report would have consisted of just four four-lettered words, all beginning with F and rhyming with Duck.

While that might have been a cathartic exercise for me, it wouldn’t have been a particularly useful one for anyone else, and so here I am, going into more, painful, detail.

First though, I think it’s important to give Swansea some credit. They effectively nullified our creativity by cutting out the supply to Tyler Goodrham, and when he did get the ball they basically just kicked him. This, along with Luke Harris’s inability to hold the ball and Brian De Keersmaecker being forced too deep, effectively left Nik Prelec isolated up front. With both Stan Mills and Przsemysłav Płacheta being denied space to run into, this meant that any attacking intent was stifled.

I guess that this is one of the problems with playing an unchanged line-up. Swansea’s analysts would have seen how the side set up against Southampton and were ready with strategies to counter that, whereas if Craig Short had made a few tweaks to line up and shape, it may have given the opposition something to react to and helped Oxford have that bit more of an edge.

As it was, though, United struggled to adapt and were forced into far too many errors by Swansea doing what Oxford should have done and pressed higher and more effectively. Arguably, Oxford don’t have the personnel for such a strategy, or perhaps it’s the problem with having one up front.

Once again, United’s Achilles heel was their inability to defend set pieces, with the most dangerous player on the pitch, Zan Vipotnik, given far too much time and space in the penalty area to pick his spot and head home from a co

And, once the goal was conceded, in just the 13th minute, that was pretty much game over. The U’s huffed and puffed to try and get back into it but lacked the pace, physicality, and nous to break down Swansea’s rearguard. And while the Swans occasionally threatened on the break, Jamie Cumming didn’t have to produce any of his fantastic shot-stopping ability. Swansea were poor; Oxford were worse.

With most other results also not going our way, this leaves Oxford back in the bottom three, three points adrift of Portsmouth and five behind Blackburn Rovers and Charlton Athletic, with difficult away games at Ipswich Town and Sheffield United to follow. As if that weren’t bad enough, Pompey, Blackburn, and Charlton have all played a game fewer than Oxford as well.

It is looking unlikely that a new manager will be appointed before the game at Bramall Lane, so whoever does get the short straw is going to have a monumental task on their hands to turn things around. The disparity between the Southampton and Swansea performances with the same group of players would suggest that there are some severe deficiencies within the squad, and I suspect that these are unlikely to be fully addressed in the January transfer window.

Obviously, things might look a bit better once Cameron Brannagan, Matt Phillips, Hidde ter Avest and Ben Davies are back from injury, but it’s likely that a squad of 23 players will always be missing some players, so I don’t think that’s a viable excuse for the performance on Monday. The January window will be a difficult one, given that the club needs to ship out several players to make room for any improvements, and I would be surprised if we sign more than a couple of players, given FFP restrictions as well.

To be fair, with one or two exceptions, this is the first season where the club has had these on-pitch struggles since the season it went down to the Conference, 20 years ago, so there is little experience within the walls of how to manage this. Hopefully, the new man (or woman) at the helm will know what it takes to stave off the threat of relegation and to ensure that the U’s are still a Championship side next season.

Otherwise, we’ll be having games against Swindon, Reading and Wycombe to look forward to, and nobody wants that.

Games without a penalty: 76