FAN’S VIEW 22/23 – No.37

OXFORD UNITED 1 PLYMOUTH ARGYLE 3

I don’t intend to waste much of my time on this. I usually give a bit of thought to getting some structure but I’m not going to on this one. Why bother with structure, my team has very little.

This is now one point from six games.

I’m having none of this yes but Argyle are top. We’re supposed to be competitive. There was much of the same old same old about this performance.

We can’t play for 90 minutes. We’ve not got it in us. MK was an example and same here.

In the first half we did look something of an attacking threat but that came about more by enthusiastic individual play than cohesive team play where each player knows their role and that of their colleagues with it all fitting seamlessly together. That’s unlikely to happen though with all the chopping and changing is it? It’s as if we’re still at the beginning of pre-season friendlies.

And even in those first 45 minutes we didn’t create gilt edged chances. What stood out for me in that period was how crap Yanic Wildschut was and how inept we were without the ball.

Our inability to keep clean sheets is laughably a given but often we’ve still had a semblance of solidarity and not conceded more than one. I don’t think our back line was getting much help and the ease with which we were cut through for Plymouth’s opener is scary. We give the opposition so much room in which to perform. We never swarm all over them for prolonged periods or have a shape that makes it hard for them to play. It tells you a lot when a recent opposition player has said he’s never had so much space in a game. (Not saying who).

Our equaliser was deserved but even then I turned to my son and said that if we were going to get anything out of the game (and I was thinking just a point) then we would need to score at least one more goal. It was Cameron Brannagan who, by the time he scored it, was fired up to such an extent that I feared a sending off. He put the free kick away well, this time hitting it directly at goal instead of executing our usual routine. Perhaps keeper Callum Burton was expecting that and perhaps he should have stopped it.

At half time I was chatting to an Oxford supporting mate who has lived in Plymouth for many years. He informed me that Argyle have a very strong bench and when they make changes they just get better. If I didn’t know it before I knew then that we were screwed. Just take a look at our bench.

Our substitutions were a cruel joke. We just got worse and worse when they were made. Even if young Tyler Goodrham had run out of legs he would have been better than Josh Murphy for the last quarter of an hour or so.

What a standout Goodrham is in this shitty rank stinking season. It was he who put in a proper tackle then ran with the ball almost the length of the pitch to win the free-kick from which we scored. It was he who entertained. It was he who provided hope. Murphy ????? Tbh we’d have been better with 10 men. There is a real problem there. There’s something very very wrong.

Wildschut, even if no good with the ball, had begun to pose a physical threat but he was too knackered to carry on. Tyler Smith his replacement had zero physical threat. Absolutely the wrong player to bring to the club. Does Robinson realise we’re playing in League One where the big boys play? Has he forgotten Oxford 0 Blackpool 3 in a very important game? Does he learn nothing? Does he think he’s building an under 10s six a side team? (Okay, I’ve gone over the top a tad but I’m trying to make a fecking obvious point here. A point that anyone with any understanding of L1 football can see).

Sam Baldock? Don’t think he touched the ball again did he? He’s not going to be anywhere near match fit. It’s desperation beyond belief.

Plymouth’s second – poor set piece defending on our part. Plymouth’s third – taken on the break.

And what do we have at the end? – Elliott Moore up front.

Wait a minute though. That Brandon Fleming cross may well have been carried over the line by Burton. We wuz robbed.

Yes we’ve been robbed by Robbo of a proper balanced fit squad and thus of just about every penny us fans have poured into our football club this season. A club we love so much that we’ll be at Cambridge on Saturday urging them on for another 90 plus minutes.

Change needs to come, know what I mean.

I’m getting bored with this. Are the board?