Expectations

[ty cobb]

Can I first of all say that I am as fed up about our situation as everyone else.

However, I would like to reign in some of the comments on this site and ask just what do we expect. We are a non league team, Forest Green, Histon and Grays are better teams then we are, would this reaction be happening should they have lost to a team two leagues below them. Had we beaten Southend would we be expecting them to get rid of half their playing squad - no beacuse we think we 'should' be beating teams like this.

We lost to a team really fired up in a cup upset, it happens, we've done it to others often enough in the past, having the attitude that some players have played their last game for the club is why clubs at this level laugh at us - we think we're bigger then we actually are.

Half the clubs in the Championship can't get a decent left back - the England right winger in the last game can't cross a ball, why do we expect our players to be able to do these things?

Having the attitude that its the end of the world everytime we suffer a defeat to a small team is not going to help our cause, nor will it help us move on. We change our team and manager every season we will not get a good team by doing this - we've show every year that it doesn't work. Players take time to bed down, partnerships need to be made, confidence needs to return.

We're part of the problem in this - we keep asking for change, not ever happy amazed that we keep losing to teams who only get 1000 fans through the gate. Accept where we are - it's not good, we should be doing better but we're not, stick with the players we've got don't get better ones by changing them we just start again.

The one constant in the last 10 years have been the fans, think about that.

[Mally]

Can I first of all say that I am as fed up about our situation as everyone else.

However, I would like to reign in some of the comments on this site and ask just what do we expect. We are a non league team, Forest Green, Histon and Grays are better teams then we are, would this reaction be happening should they have lost to a team two leagues below them. Had we beaten Southend would we be expecting them to get rid of half their playing squad - no beacuse we think we 'should' be beating teams like this.

We lost to a team really fired up in a cup upset, it happens, we've done it to others often enough in the past, having the attitude that some players have played their last game for the club is why clubs at this level laugh at us - we think we're bigger then we actually are.

Half the clubs in the Championship can't get a decent left back - the England right winger in the last game can't cross a ball, why do we expect our players to be able to do these things?

Having the attitude that its the end of the world everytime we suffer a defeat to a small team is not going to help our cause, nor will it help us move on. We change our team and manager every season we will not get a good team by doing this - we've show every year that it doesn't work. Players take time to bed down, partnerships need to be made, confidence needs to return.

We're part of the problem in this - we keep asking for change, not ever happy amazed that we keep losing to teams who only get 1000 fans through the gate. Accept where we are - it's not good, we should be doing better but we're not, stick with the players we've got don't get better ones by changing them we just start again.

The one constant in the last 10 years have been the fans, think about that.

But we keep being told what a fantastic set-up we have at the club and how it's a football league set-up with players on football league wages. Also it's not just one bad result out of the blue it's a whole series of bad results against teams we should be beating. I agree that wholesale changes aren't the solution but I think the fans have every right to be angry with the board, manager and squad with the current situation. There's no way you can blame the fans for the dross served up away at Histon, Droylsden and Tonbridge to name 3 sides I'd never heard of until this season.

[Werthers Original]

Extreme frustration with the management is completely reasonable, given that we have gone backwards since last year, a season which was itself supremely frustrating. We let some good players go and brought in donkeys, centre halves and loanees. Whatever their faults, does anyone really think that a team containing Basham and Hargreaves would be as pathetic as the current one?

[GodalmingYellow]

Yes we are non-league and worse than Histon and the like and have no divine right and all that. But we shouldn't be. With our resources, with our facilities, with our support base, we should not be in this position.

Of course any team can beat any other given the right circumstances and a lot of luck. But the fact remains that it should not happen that a team like Tonbridge beats a team like Oxford. And having a second chance to do away with the minnow fry, we still could not achieve it.

And yet, if that were a single event, we might still accept it grudgingly. The trouble is, its a recurring theme, not a one off, and has been a recurring theme for a long time, a very long time.

One might understand Accrington beating Liverpool in the right circumstances. But 999 times out of 1000, it shouldn't happen. And that's the problem for us, we get beaten too frequently, too easily by teams we should be able to deal with easily.

We change the manager frequently because frequently the wrong manager is chosen. Whether Patto will turn out to be the right man remains to be seen.

[Snake]

“The one constant in the last 10 years have been the fans, think about that.

[Pe├▒a Oxford United]

Sorry, how bad do we have to become before it's OK to be utterly and abjectly pissed off?

[Snake]

I was going to add you and boris to that list before I realised youÔÇÖd been around for a lot longer than 10 years.

[theox]

[quote=&quotGodalmingYellow&quot]Yes we are non-league and worse than Histon and the like and have no divine right and all that. But we shouldn't be. With our resources, with our facilities, with our support base, we should not be in this position.[quote]

Summed up perfectly in one sentence.

[ty cobb]

Thought that might stir it up a bit.

I totally agree we shouldn't be in this position, with our crowds and resources we should be in league 1 let alone league 2.

I also get fed up with OUFC telling us how we have got very good facilities and the team are confident of promotion every bloody year - if thats the case knuckle down and get on with it because I don't beleive it's true.

However, I think one of the main reasons we are down at this level is because we change players and managers far too regularly and we as fans are usually the ones calling for this. How many players do we sing the name of anymore, beacuse we expect better when a player doesn't live up to expectations (which are too high) we get on their back - as no players currently live up to expectations we don't sing their name - Duffy can get 20 goals last season yet many fans think we can do better and expect more from him. In league 2 as soon as it looked like we weren't going to get promoted the manager gets changed - the one season we gave one a chance and a couple of seasons he got some consistency and nearly got us up.

Like I said I'm fed up about it but we've changed manager, gone 4-4-2 which hasn't worked and on this site and TiU people are talking about players playing their last game for the club. Do you honestly think if we get anyone else in they'll be any better. Players at this level are much of a muchness, what a good team has is team spirit a good bond with their supporters who don't start groaning and over reacting when things keep getting worse.

In all the responses to this thread not one positive way forward has been suggested, it is all too easy to moan nowadays thanks to the internet but we're all 'experts' what else can the club do but work hard, keep together and get through this differcult time?

Keeping together means keeping the fans with them as well - read the article in WSC about our game with Woking to see what a neutral thought about our fans impact on the team. We're not the main reason for our downfall but I do think we are contributing to it - it's very very hard to keep the faith and support up when your team is struggling against Tonbridge Angels but what is the alternative - boo and slag the players off because this won't help.

It is all too easy to be doom and gloom after some very poor results but before Northwich we had put together some very useful results - this is forgotton about due to two bad results against a poor but very very up for it team. We're not bothered about the FA trophy (52 fans - they brought 4 times this to ours!) yet it's like we've been knocked out of the FA cup.

We've now got a manager who talks a lot of sense, will play 4-4-2 and brings the younger players through - for these reasons we should give him at least all of next season and see where we are. It will be often painful to watch, they'll be some shocking results but we have to stick with it - what other choice do we have??

[A-Ro]

I can't get this blaming the fans for everything(sic). For some of us we are the same fans that were there in the 60's and have seen through all the good and great times, when did we stop being great fans who got the team to the top flight and then started being rubbish fans who got us relegated?

Fans get on the back of teams / players when the team plays crap football not because they like doing it. Football is a simple game which is beautiful to watch when it is played well, when it is played badly I and many others reserve the right to display my displeasure - God knows, I've paid enough money to deserve that right.

Football fans are often described as fickle - simple solution to that - stop playing crap football.

[Pe├▒a Oxford United]

main reason for our downfall but I do think we are contributing to it - it's very very hard to keep the faith and support up when your team is struggling against Tonbridge Angels but what is the alternative - boo and slag the players off because this won't help.

The alternative to booing, for most people, isn't not booing so much as not going.

Do Oxford fans really strike anybody as the most critical fans in England? But over the last ten years they've seen the most unsuccessful side in English football. Could it be that this absence of success is nothing to do with criticism from the stand?

[Matt D]

to some extent i have sympathy with ty's view - although, ty, i think you underplay the significance of the results we've had this season, and that our exit from the FA trophy wasn't about being caught cold by a fired-up team. the fact we were eliminated in the replay, having played so poorly in the first game is deeply worrying.

however, i certainly think that i've seen some clubs' supporters set an example for us as to what a far more positive attitude can achieve in a game (e.g. aldershot fans over the last couple of seasons).

BUT - i think this is where a strong lead from the club's directors come into play. if they think that patterson is the man to turn the club round, they need to give him the time to do this, and not over-react to pressure fom the supporters in the way that kassam was often apt to do.

[ty cobb]

I've never said the fans should be blaimed for everything or do I think we are the most critical fans in England, however I do think many of our fans have the highest expectations going into matches simply because of the position we find ourselves in.

For example we would always expect to beat a team like Forest Green, either home or away, but they are a better team then us on paper (being higher in the league) yet the expectation is still there because we're Oxford United and they're a village team.

How often do you hear people say I can't believe we're losing to the poxy team?

Of course you reserve the right to display your displeasure - but before you do ask just what you are hoping to achieve by doing so - get rid of the manager, reduce a players confidence, expect a player to leave the club? All these things have contributed to where we are - of course they're not the main reason, far from it, but I think getting on players and managers backs after a few bad results, like what has happened now, is not going to do OUFC any good at all.

[Pe├▒a Oxford United]

What are you trying to achieve by asking people what they're trying to achieve? What on earth has it got to do with anything? I've never known any situation, however bad, when there hasn't been somebody prepared to come out with the old &quotwe should get behind the team&quot palaver. When Robert Maxwell was selling players to his father, when the club was about to go out of business, when th stadium was half-built and rusting, when we were relegated from the league.

It means absolutely nothing. People will react how they react. If they don't feel like getting behind the team then they won't. It's damned surprising that people don't just disappear and find something else to do (there's plenty that have). The people who complain are the people who've stayed. That's the choice. People are not composed of infinite patience and if they were they would not be watching football matches.

[Mally]

I've never said the fans should be blaimed for everything or do I think we are the most critical fans in England, however I do think many of our fans have the highest expectations going into matches simply because of the position we find ourselves in.

For example we would always expect to beat a team like Forest Green, either home or away, but they are a better team then us on paper (being higher in the league) yet the expectation is still there because we're Oxford United and they're a village team.

How often do you hear people say I can't believe we're losing to the poxy team?

Of course you reserve the right to display your displeasure - but before you do ask just what you are hoping to achieve by doing so - get rid of the manager, reduce a players confidence, expect a player to leave the club? All these things have contributed to where we are - of course they're not the main reason, far from it, but I think getting on players and managers backs after a few bad results, like what has happened now, is not going to do OUFC any good at all.

It depends how you look at things. Yes on an individual match basis you can say that we will probably lose to a side higher up the table but standing back a bit when you look at our resources we should be a better team than the vast majority of sides at this level. It also has to be remembered that the only reason we are lower in the table than sides like Forest Green is because we've lost to sides like Droylsden, Histon and Northwich.

We all know that money talks in football for most clubs at all levels so with the amount of money that has gone into Oxford United compared to those around us we should be doing a lot better.

Fans as a group are fickle because they are emotionaly attached but that works both ways. They can soon turn on sides who are playing badly but on the other hand if we were to go out and play great football and score a couple of quality goals then the atmosphere would change dramatically. Similarly if we were riding high in the league then losing to Tonbridge would be seen as a blip and fans would be prepared to applaud the team as long as they thought they'd gien 100%

As for getting rid of managers and players I've never been a believer in getting rid of managers unless it follows complete disaster such as relegation. All it means is that it takes another season to get the players recycled and you start again from scratch. I think the only reason people on here are talking about getting rid of players is because it was Patterson who broght this up in his post match interview on Saturday, effectively saying that the whole of the midfield and forwards were on probation for 3 months to save their jobs. If the reponse at Tonbridge is anything to go by then it could have been a big mistake but they stillhave the chance to redeemthemselves over Christmas,