Paul Beasley

Aldershot

Watching Oxford United at present is for the most part a demoralising and sad experience. Sad because the manager who brought us back into the Football League – and let’s not forget that was no easy task – has fallen way short in taking us on to the next level. Sad because he is getting abuse which is not justified, but “Wilder Out” free speech is totally justified and whilst the vast majority don’t join in, when questioned, they are of the same opinion. The only thing that holds some people back is “yes but if we twist instead of sticking we could end up in a worse situation.” To that I’d say do you really want Groundhog season 2012/13 for evermore? I don’t. This season might as well not have happened. For the most part I’ve been bored s***less. Memories – we beat Swindon. But that was in the JPT which is a joke of a competition. Our home form is detritic (a word I’ve made up for the occasion) and whilst our away performances have produced some joy – loved Gillingham – it is totally meaningless when taken in context: they’re going up; we’re not. We’ve now lost two more games than we have won in League two. Not acceptable, and the entertainment being provided in defeat is mostly mind numbingly boring.

As for this game – well we knew what was coming. We had less than 500 fans present for a game that’s basically just down the road. No one believes any more, but if they had done there would have been well over double that number of Yellows present.

For once we had a surface to play on that said come on I’ll allow decent football. I’m not the Kassam s**tpit. I thought it was made for Sean Rigg to get going once again. Did we play decent football? No, what happened was:

– Riggy got injured early on and was replaced by a full back. Wtf?

– The team at the very bottom of the league looked better than us and took a two goal lead.

But they were that bad we managed to get back to 2-2 only to be so flimsy we conceded again to go down 3-2. And we weren’t surprised. One thing Chris Wilder largely stamped out when he arrived was the giving away of numerous silly free kicks (and penalties). This weakness was again very evident at the Recreation Ground and we paid for it. I will say I thought that their movement for the winner was fantastic. As the free-kick was being taken the numerous bodies they had in our penalty area all moved about a lot at speed. We looked on perplexed, perhaps because it’s not something we understand how to pull off whenever we sling meaningless dead balls towards our opponents’ goal.

In summary, utter s***e. Never during this game did we have a spell in control. We’d lost again to a side that were not very good. So what does that say about us?

I will however stand up for two players, Andy Whing and Jake Wright.

The former battled as ever and gave his all. We went to the game with Spurs supporting friends from Chobham who watch Oxford with us two or three times a season. They picked out Whingy as our standout player in the worst performance they’d seen from an Oxford side.

Jake is our player of the season by a country mile. Take a close look at him and it is evident that he wants and expects so much more from this under achieving Oxford United side. His frustration at the need to chivvy up Liam Davis who was staring into the sparsely populated South Stand Terrace instead of getting on with the job in hand, a throw-in, said a lot. I think Davis is well worth keeping at the club but there’s no denying he had a shocker at Aldershot. I can only assume he was trying to pick out someone in the crowd who had given him cowardly abuse. A bit earlier as he ran within a few yards of us he was greeted with, “you’re f***ing useless”. There’s a lot wrong with our club and team at the moment and perhaps not least behaviour like this from some of our so called fans.

One other thing I didn’t understand about our approach to this game was why Craddock was the focal point of our attack. That’s not his game, particularly when balls are played to him more often than not in the air as opposed to feet.

Wycombe

As this was basically a meaningless game for both sides – other than playing for the pride of winning a football match – one would have hoped for a little relaxation and some half decent football.

To add to our inability to play when the pressure is on we can now add an inability to play when the pressure is off.

Again, the opposition were not great, but again we lost and any argument that we were unlucky would be very flimsy. Joel Grant nipped through our defence with ease for their goal. There may have been still over three quarters of the game to go when this happened but as we’ve got a strike force that rarely strikes these days that was game over.

The referee, as usual, allowed assaults to go unpunished, on Whing as per the norm and Beano too, but his lack of helpfulness to us in no way helps explain another anaemic performance.

Our finishing was again of uncoached park kick about standard but I’ll exempt our man of the match Jon-Paul Pitman from this criticism. He hit a post and had an athletic over head effort go narrowly close.

The rest doesn’t bear thinking about. Beano never looked like scoring and Craddock’s goal scoring instincts have deserted him. Of course he should have done a lot better, it goes without saying, but Beano never got on the end of anything to be in a position to have that criticism levelled against him.

I know many will disagree, but other than his finishing, I thought TC was one of our better players. However, as seems to be the fashion at the moment, he got a lot of abuse. Again from someone sat to our right who early on loudly told everyone that Craddock was “not fit to wear the shirt”. Early on when absolutely nothing was happening it was Craddock who bothered to move a bit and receive the ball from throw-ins. When a team is lacking confidence and playing as poorly as we are it takes some guts to still want the ball. Okay, not all of his passing was as accurate as it could have been but again, to me, he was playing with an intelligence lacking in others. If I was him I’d want out of the club given the way he’s treated by some fans and possibly the management too. There were many others who in my view should have been substituted before him. No wonder he was off down the tunnel.

We seem to have a section of supporters who have it in for footballers whose standout qualities are touch and vision and not sweat and effort. I recall that Lee Bradbury got similar treatment from some.

Deane Smalley added nothing and neither did Josh Parker in the few minutes he had. I’ve not seen anything in these two players that suggests they can help take the club forward. I’m not one who has been demanding that we see the youngsters but surely with absolutely nothing to lose and many others not playing very well what harm could have been done in giving Callum O’Dowda a little run out? This told me that it was never intended he would get a game.

Perhaps if we’d seen something of the future we’d have liked it and had a tiny bit of enthusiasm rekindled.

As to the future? Our family will renew our season tickets even though in 2012/13 we’ve had terrible value for money. That’s what we do. We’re Oxford United fans. It’s an addiction. I’d be lying though if I said I was doing so with good grace. I feel I’m being conned as I have no idea what the plans are, both on and off the pitch, for spending the thousands of pounds the club will be getting from us loyalists in the next couple of months. If things carry on as this campaign, it’ll either end in total apathy or downright combustible mutiny.