Fan’s FACT

Our finishing is sub-standard. In fact it’s pretty crap. The rest is incidental. It is stating the bleeding obvious. Every Oxford fan knows this. The management knows this. More weeks than not we refer to this. Many a game this season points have been handed to the opposition because of this. This is the reason that we will not make the play-offs. And yet incredibly, nothing, repeat NOTHING, is being done about this. A few bland statements saying we’ve got to get better at taking our chances ain’t going to sort anything out, is it?

In the second half at Sixfields our dominance was almost total, but did we score? Did we cobblers? Many were guilty. Meaning that the home side needed just the one goal to take all three points.

THE INCIDENTAL

The weather

It’s near the end of March so less with the feckin snow if you please. An orange ball, memories of Hugh Johns on Star Soccer, blizzard conditions – but of course it doesn’t matter about the weather or the colour of the ball does it? We could have had any combination of rain, shine, hail, hurricane, or plague of frogs dropping from the sky with the ball being any shade of the rainbow, but I bet we’d still not have found the back of the net.

Referee watch

It never pays to think that the referee is having a good game, although I must say that recently we’ve seen one or two who were pretty good. On Saturday early on I thought referee Webb (not Howard) understood the game. He was allowing proper tackles to be made without punishment which is exactly how it should always be, let alone in these conditions. Fatal mistake, as the game progressed it became obvious to me he was, as they nearly all are, a bit crap. The evidence I put before the jury:

– Andy Whing was taken out before the Northampton goal as he attempted to get a block in to prevent the ball being played into the box. The referee was in the vicinity. If he didn’t spot it he’s crap. If he spotted it and decided to do nothing he’s crap. Andy Whing is a real man, unlike some of the wimps wearing black who never have to answer for their actions / inactions, but that doesn’t mean that he’s fair game for all manner of thuggery with no protection whatsoever. When Whingy complains there really is something to complain about.

– At every corner we had Clarke Carlisle (PFA Chairman, who presumably advises on how to break the laws of the game and get away with it) had his arms right round Michael Raynes. He wasn’t even trying to do it in a sneaky way. But such was the crapness of Webb that CC knew he had nothing to worry about. Any referee who properly applied the rules would have awarded a penalty every time.

– In the first half Damien Batt committed a foul in front of the Alwyn Hargreaves East Stand. Well Webb thought it was a foul. If it was it certainly was not intentional and Batty certainly did not deserve a talking to for it, but talking to he got. The Cobblers committed many deliberate fouls and in line with Mr Webb’s crapness got no words of warning.

– My son has better eyesight than I so I’ll take it from him that Raynes deserved to be booked for a reckless challenge near the end of the game. But the retaliation and man handling he then suffered, according to the laws of the game, warranted a card or two for the home side didn’t they?

Wing men

On the evidence of this match I’d swap their two for our two. Chris Hackett looked a class above in the first half and his dead ball delivery was way better than anything we produced. Ishmel Demontagnac, although he saw less of the ball, had an assured trickery about him.

The season is over

Come on everyone. It really is over now. Finally, for sure. Unless of course we win the last six games.

And looking at the fixtures if we were half decent we’d think they were all very winnable. But so was the Chesterfield game and the fact that we don’t do that very important thing of putting the ball in the net means that it really really is over. Isn’t it?