Oxford United v Torquay United - 10/11/12

[tktufc91]

Didn't go because to be honest for two reasons.

1. I didn't think we would score
And
2. I thought we would be thrashed

That being said, very happy with a draw. Probably the best we could have hoped for under the circumstances.

Just worries me how much we rely on Howe and how we don't seem to have a suitable replacement for him.

Also well done Martin Rice. Sounded like he was confident and made some brilliant saves.

[Dutchgull]

It was Riceys league debut at the age of 26. Well done again !!

[royalgull]

Just got back

Holy Christ at what we've become. As bad a game of football as I've seen in a long long time, Oxford beign marginally better than us on chances created but they weren't a good side and we gave them far too much respect.

We are what I expected us to be, a good defensive team with no footballers and no cutting edge. Not a very good combination if you've got any ambition of being a good football team. Ling talks about passing with a purpose and passing the ball well he's made a team who are incapable of doing that.

My first look at Nathan Craig - average. First look at Easton - DREADFUL, First look at Thompson - raw but could be a player there.

We could have been a goal down inside the first 5mins with no communication between the centre backs led to Oxford getting a breakaway, Craddock put Constable in and Ricey made a good save to keep him out.

We had 3 shots in the match and they were all in the 1st half. Bodin put one in the stand attempting a 'Beckham', Craig's free kick went wide, and with the last shot of the half we forced Clarke into his only save in the entire game with a shot at his near post.

2nd half was Oxford pressure but without the final end product. Pittman smashed a shot over when he got clear of the defense, Ricey was forced into his second good save when Constable found some room in the box but Ricey pushed his shot over.

Downes and Saah dealt with the majority of balls pumped forward by oxford and I thought Oastler had his best game that i've seen him play, even though Oxford gave their left winger MOM, I thought Joe had done a decent job on him. Nicholson however was utterly shocking and was the single worst game i've ever seen him have. Either gave Oxford possession or thumped it out of play constantly.

Rice made two move excellent saves late on to preserve our point along with some wasteful Oxford finishing.

Notice here how I'm not typing about our forward players? They don't deserve me wasting time talking about them. Just appalling. Couple wiht a midfield that can't pass it or create anything it's no surprise to me that we a) struggle to score goals geranlly and b) have been on a poor run.

Without Howe this team has nothing, today he didn't play, we had nothing. We can be very thankful of our point today and the credit for that goes to Martin Rice, Joe Oastler, Aaraon Downes and Brian Saah in the main. Everyone else was way below par.

a shocking game of football, a terrible TUFC performance from an attacking point, so have to be satisfied with a point.

Rice 8
Oastler 7
Saah 8
Downes 8 - MOTM
Nicholson 4
Lathrope 5
Mansell 6
Craig 4
Easton 4
Bodin 4
Jarvis 4

Thompson 6
Yeoman 5

[Southampton Gull]

Can't really add more to what royalgull has said although I thought Bodin was at least adventurous and direct and I also thought we looked more dangerous when Thompson came on.

Ricey did very well today and I hope he gets the praise he deserves as it was a worthy performance from him.

[jonnyfive]

Couldn't make today's match; how did Jarvo play?

[royalgull]

Rhymes with FIT

[AustrianAndyGull]

Now does everyone see what i mean about consistently poor and negative away performances, how there is no need for it all the time and how frustrated and annoyed i get for good reason? Martin needs to grow a pair of balls because its getting boring now and paying to watch this cack is him taking liberties with the fans. It,s not just some of us on here that are negative, martin is worse than all of us! Ordinarily i'd be celebrating a well earned point but he,s gone out there with no intention of winning the game. It doesn,t matter if rene is out, we still have other squad players who can come in and do a job. If they aren,t good enough then get rid of the f*ckers! Why hang onto them when lingy blatantly doesn,t think they,re any good?

[Southampton Gull]

Andy, he had the spine of his team removed after surpassing all our expectations last season and we don't have the resources to just go out and buy the quality needed to replace them, it's the joy of supporting a small club and while Martin Ling is our manager I'll give him my total support and trust him to do what is best for the Club.

I think we need to see the bigger picture with the players we have missing through injury or suspension.

[royalgull]

Very valid from Dave, don't think we tried to be defensive. We just didn't have the quality when we tried to go forward to do much with it.

Got to take a point in the end as a decent point. Lads at the back were great

[Plymouthgull]

First of all, congratulations to Martin Rice. He has worked hard and has taken his opportunity. Deserves to keep his place for the next game. However, I am increasingly concerned about our performances. Listened today and again we sounded like a team that had very little chance of actually scoring - God we must be boring to watch away! I refuse to pay money to watch such cack but salute those who go to the away games.
At the risk of being criticised heavily, I am beginning to have doubts about Ling. I know there is no money, but do we really have to play such negative tactics away when they seem to produce such small returns? As for the players, why oh why did we sign Easton and Jarvis? Is Yeoman really league standard and will Bodin ever score a goal again this season? We badly need a midfielder woh can create opportunities and another forward who can take them.

[AustrianAndyGull]

Its the negative bore fest all the time. Theres just no need for it regardless of personnel.

[Southampton Gull]

Its the negative bore fest all the time. Theres just no need for it regardless of personnel.

It's the same system we used successfully last season after a dismal start employing different tactics.

The difference IS the personnel mate.

[miltonkeynesgull]

Well, we got away with murder there. Oxford could and should have stuck 2 or 3 past us in the second half, but thankfully their finishing is as bad as, if not worse than, ours.

I was thinking on the way there that a draw would be a decent result, and I suppose I still stand by that, but after seeing how poor Oxford were, I feel annoyed that we didn't at least attempt to go for all three points. But as soon as I saw that we were going 4-5-1 with Jarvis up top on his own, I had a feeling this wouldn't be a vintage performance.

The first half was one of the most dismal halves of football I've ever seen. Defensively we were fine, but going forward there was no energy, no urgency, and it was just lacklustre. None of the lads seemed to want the ball, and as soon as they got it, it was like the proverbial hot potato and booted away as soon as possible. Our entire plan seemed to be to knock it in the air up the middle to Jarvis and just hope for the best. He of course isn't Rene, and couldn't bring it down and bring anyone else in, so we created very little. I can barely remember us venturing up the wing at all, and there was very little in terms of goalbound efforts (I guess that one way of curing a strikeforce that can't shoot is to just not shoot!).

By far our best chances came from Bodin. Due to his complete lack of service, he was having very little joy, but a couple of times he managed to create something out of nothing, and pinged in a couple of good efforts and won us a couple of free kicks in good positions. Thankfully, Oxford were equally poor. They had a few decent chances, but Rice was solid in the first half without really being tested.

It was one of those games were, at half-time, you thought the other team would be there for the taking, but as soon as the second period began, it was clear they were more fired up and we'd have a storm to weather. Pitman, Constable and a host of others all missed glorious chances for Oxford early on. A rare foray to their box, and a free kick, saw Jarvis (I think) head the ball in, but it was offside. Oxford continued to ramp up the pressure, and in the last 15 minutes or so, it was an almost constant bombardment. Only a goal-line clearance from Downes, some excellent saves from Ricey, and some utterly dreadful finishing from them kept us in the game.

Our only other notable attack, right at the death, saw Yeoman cross and Thompson head over from point blank range. It would've been a travesty if we'd won it, but perhaps justice after Barnet on Tuesday.

At the FT time whistle the relief was palpable amongst our fans, knowing we'd got away with it. It was a terrible performance in truth, just dreadful football with absolutely no intention to attack and give Oxford a game. Performing successfully away from home is always going to see a more defensive mindset, and a lot of soaking up of pressure. But after winning the ball back, we should be counter attacking with pace and invention. But we just had no creativity, and lumped it up the pitch time and again, and we were back to square one. One of the worst midfield performances - Lathrope in particular - that I've seen in a long time. It was always going to be tough without Rene, but the fact we go to pieces without him is a worry. However, even with Rene, we've now gone three games without scoring.

At least if we were consistently awful, we could pinpoint what was wrong, but the fact that we're so inconsistent, and our performance varies so much from game to game, makes it very tricky to work out what is wrong. What is certain today, though, is that we were very happy to play for a point, and offer nothing going forward. The style of play was just horrendous. It was so obvious before the game that 4-5-1 with Jarvis up top wouldn't work, but unbelievably we did it, and we almost got what we deserved. But we got away with it - thank god the league is so mediocre this year.

Few ratings:

Ricey: 8 - First half was solid, and you could see him growing in confidence the more he went on. Pulled off some good saves second half, too. Nothing Pokey couldn't have done, but an assured performance.
Oastler: 9 - My MOTM. Very little got past him. Tackling was excellent, won the ball, got his head up, and found a man. One of very few to do so.
Downes: 8 - Imperious. Fantastic in the air. Very impressive again.
Saah: 7 - Decent. A little shaky at times, but still good.
Nicho: 5 - Not sure what's happened to him this season. Just hasn't been himself when I've seen him. Continually beaten by their winger, and his passing was way off today.
Craig: 5 - Very quiet. Nice free kick which was saved well, but apart from that, not really in the game. Left mid is not his position at all for me, not helped by the fact we didn't utilise the flanks at all.
Lathrope: 4 - Really poor. Passing was woeful. Tackling not bad but continually wasteful.
Easton: 5 - Did something well but then balanced it out with a mistake. Yet to really impress me.
Manse: 6 - Not at his best, but surrounded by tripe. Was really up for it, and got stuck in with some good tackling. No complaints.
Bodin: 7 - Got some very unfair abuse from a section of our 'support', but was working with no service. Ran himself into the ground and was creating stuff from nothing.
Jarvis: 4 - Oh dear oh dear. One up front just doesn't work with him. Tried really hard but nothing happened. Again, not helped by a lack of service.

SUBS:
Not worth mentioning.

Officials:
Ref got a lot of stick, but brought it upon himself. If you're going to punish a very slight push in the first 30 seconds of the match, then you've got to keep that up for 90 minutes. Wildly inconsistent and seemed to just pick and choose his fouls.

Support:
Decent, but had the misfortune to sit next to three know-it-all old buggers who made the most ridiculous comments all game. "Robin Stubbs would've scored that", "play it on the deck they're bigger than us", "sort it out", "bleddy rubbish". I despair sometimes. All in all though, good numbers, and a good noise considering we had nothing to shout about.

Oh and one final thing. Oxford United FC - £21.50 to watch a League 2 football game in your dump of a ground in a retail park is an absolute disgrace.

[Bigman]

I think I agree totally with roaylgull, except we did have one other shot - a free kick from Nicho that went nowhere near the goal. He also didn't mention our offside goal which came right at the start of the second half, but I think was rightly ruled out because Downes was past the last man (really shouldn't be at a free kick when he can look along the line).

This was my first game this season, the main things I noticed that haven't changed from last year are that Lathrope can't pass and Bodin isn't as good as we'd all like to believe. He tried a couple of things but like everyone else on the pitch didn't really look that interested.

Don't think our system suited our players today, though I'm not sure exactly what system suits 4 central midfielders. Jarvis is not a target man and when he went off we still tried hitting long balls towards Bodin and Mansell which is never likely to work. On the two occassions we tried playing more than one pass in a row we looked alright, but nobody wanted the ball so we passed it across the back four or lumped it forward and lost it. Silver linings for me were Rice who did everything well, Downes who was immense and suggests Ellis will not be missed, and Thompson who at least looked interested and gave it a go when he came on, but looked knackered after 10 minutes and needs to work on his movement.

Ref made some inexplicable decisions for both teams, ignoring what looked like obvious fouls, failing to book Constable despite several dives, and giving multiple corners and throws the wrong way. My highlight of the whole game was the Oxford fans going mad cos they thought he'd given us a penalty after their defender made a good tackle to keep Craig from going clear, conceding a clear corner, but he was actually giving them a goal kick. Their appeal for handball when Oastler blocked a cross with his arse also amused me.

We didn't really deserve anything from the game, but Oxford didn't deserve to win so a draw was about right. On this evidence there'll be plenty of teams worse than us in the division to keep us safe from relegation worries, but we'll struggle to score enough goals to get near promotion.

[ferrarilover]

I feel exactly the same as Royal, two sides who weren't even worthy of the nil they ended with. Generally indicative of the standard offered up by L2 this year. Such a shame as last years team would be in the top two already.
Jarvo, despite my best prematch inclinations, was hopeless. Craig had a bad game, but was being played out of position wide left. Ricey, Downer, Saahsy and JOastler were just about up to standard, but the rest, yet again, were not worthy of any meaningful praise.
Three matches against opposition we could and should have beaten handsomely and we've not even hit the net once.

Matt.