Before the game I was hoping for a 4-0 thumping, but having struggled to beat D&R and Barnet, and knowing that Macc had to stop their rot, and previous Oxford experiences, a draw was inevitable.
I agree though that under the law of averages rule we should thump S*****n 3-0. We do tend to raise our game for the big occasions.
Not good enough
Re: Not good enough
How can Capaldi be a key player? He hasn't played yet. It might have been intended that he would be a key player but that's rather different."Radley Rambler" wrote: I think that is a bit harsh GY, last season we consolidated well and this season we are in the play-off zone despite long term injuries to key players (Capaldi, Craddock).
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Radley Rambler
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Re: Not good enough
On the basis of intention as you indicate Baboo - he played in the Championship a couple of seasons ago. Whilst that is no guarantee that he would be a key player, it's a strong start."Baboo" wrote:How can Capaldi be a key player? He hasn't played yet. It might have been intended that he would be a key player but that's rather different."Radley Rambler" wrote: I think that is a bit harsh GY, last season we consolidated well and this season we are in the play-off zone despite long term injuries to key players (Capaldi, Craddock).
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joepoolman
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Re:
I didn't say that your views of the manager were based one one game, I was making a general comment on a relevant topic."GodalmingYellow" wrote:It's always funny when people try to put words in your mouth.
View based on the day? That simply doesn't wash. We've dropped far too many points at home this season. We've had far too many games when we have such little creativity that we cannot break down the worst teams in the division where other sides score 4 or 5. We've had far too many games where we concede poor goals against poor sides. We've had far too many games where a decent side would have won, but we've sat back and not gone for the jugular.
I am also pretty sure I didn't mention changing the manager. I said he is mediorce at League 2 level, and not good enough to get us the promotion that we should be going for.
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GodalmingYellow
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Re:
Fair enough Joe. My mis-interpretation then."joepoolman" wrote:I didn't say that your views of the manager were based one one game, I was making a general comment on a relevant topic."GodalmingYellow" wrote:It's always funny when people try to put words in your mouth.
View based on the day? That simply doesn't wash. We've dropped far too many points at home this season. We've had far too many games when we have such little creativity that we cannot break down the worst teams in the division where other sides score 4 or 5. We've had far too many games where we concede poor goals against poor sides. We've had far too many games where a decent side would have won, but we've sat back and not gone for the jugular.
I am also pretty sure I didn't mention changing the manager. I said he is mediorce at League 2 level, and not good enough to get us the promotion that we should be going for.
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joepoolman
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To be honest I think we owe it to Wilder to stick with him even if we should be doing slightly better at the moment because of how far he's taken us and the fact that he's had oppertunites to go to clubs higher up the leagues and turned them all down. Also I'd say that of the 6 teams above us, Slumdon, Southend and Crawley have bigger budgets and Shrewsbury's is probably pretty similar. And I think maybe you should show a little more paitience seeing as we're looking very good to improve on a strong first season back in the league.
I didn't go to the game, Jerome, but from afar I do think there might be some mitigating factors in the result. When we lost Potter, Pittman and Craddock to injury in the same week Wilder did pretty well in replacing them with Rendell, Kerrouche, Holmes and Johnson. However none of these 4 had been playing regular football and we've just played 4 games in two weeks. It's probably not surprising that we weren't at our best in the 2nd half of the most recent game. We should still be beating Macclesfield as they are in a far worse state than us for injuries.
The one area we've improved on from last year is we have far more frustrating home draws, compared to frustrating home defeats that featured last season. Progress of sorts.
Overall I think the club would be nuts to contemplate sacking Wilder at the moment. Again maybe because I don't have the frustration of recent bad performances, but the progress is still steady enough. I do think we need to make the playoffs (I suspect achieving break even is dependent on it) otherwise there would be a more serious decision to make at the end of the season.
The one area we've improved on from last year is we have far more frustrating home draws, compared to frustrating home defeats that featured last season. Progress of sorts.
Overall I think the club would be nuts to contemplate sacking Wilder at the moment. Again maybe because I don't have the frustration of recent bad performances, but the progress is still steady enough. I do think we need to make the playoffs (I suspect achieving break even is dependent on it) otherwise there would be a more serious decision to make at the end of the season.
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GodalmingYellow
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Re:
I don't agree with any of that Joe, apart from Swinedown's budget..
We don't owe Wilder anything. If anything he owes us, because we took him from a collapsing club and gave him a profile to showcase what he could do. For the record, I don't believe he has turned down any higher league clubs and I don't believe he has even been interviewed for a job at a higher level, let alone be offered it to turn it down. You need to separate fact from media speculation.
Football is not a sentimental business. You don't stick with someone because they've improved you previously. You stick with someone because you believe they might improve you in the future. When it becomes clear that they will be unlikely to improve then you say thanks and move on to the next level. and Wilder would expect no different and he applies that principle to players. Matt Green scored a wonderful goal for us in the play off final, he was given a chance at League 2 level and shown not to be good enough, so Wilder said thanks and moved him on. that is the normal way of things.
As regards budgets, You only need take a look at gate levels and ticket prices to determine who has the biggest budget, because everyone works on the same formula of 55% of turnover. Other matchday revenue is tiny in comparison and makes very little difference.
There ar eonly 2 clubs with higher league attendances than us this season in League 2, Bradford, and Swinedown. Bradford's total attendance this season so far is 162,334 for 16 games, Swinedown's is 118658 for 15 games and our's is 114863 for 16 games. Bradford are still paying for their ground developments and had a disastrous first half of the season when they employed Peter Taylor who paid large salaries for crap players and so wasted their budget. Swindedown's is clearly marginally ahead of our budget.Crawley had to sell their best player for £800k to remain in budget because of their low crowds and they had some good cup runs. Their budget is way lower than ours and like him or not, Steve Evans is good at spotting low cost high value players, whereas Wilder is appalling at this. Shrewsbury's budget is 25% less than ours, Southend's is 20% less than our's and Paul Sturrock is a very good manager at this level.
The simple fact is that Wilder's method of signing players is to sign loads and hope that a few turn out to be good. He puts far too much emphasis on signing loads of strikers. We have very little midfield creativity in the side, and virtually no back up at centre back or full back.
The problem Wilder doesn't recognise is that it isn't the players that are the problem, it is Wilder's limited tactical ability and set ideas on formation. Wilder doesn't get the best out of the players he has signed, and he doesn't signed the right players anyway.
I think maybe my patience isn't the issue here, and you might want to provide some facts to support your theories.
Wilder's failures are beginning to cost us gate receipts and the longer term impact of that is a longer term in League 2.
I'll say it again, given the resources and facilities we have, we should be pushing for automatic promotion at this stage, rather than hanging on to the final play off place by our fingertips, with every likelihood of finishing this season outside the play offs.
I'll say it again, if Kelvin can identify someone very likely to improve us this season, then he should at least give it consideration. If not, and we do not reach at least the play off final this season, then I think we have to make a change in the summer.
We don't owe Wilder anything. If anything he owes us, because we took him from a collapsing club and gave him a profile to showcase what he could do. For the record, I don't believe he has turned down any higher league clubs and I don't believe he has even been interviewed for a job at a higher level, let alone be offered it to turn it down. You need to separate fact from media speculation.
Football is not a sentimental business. You don't stick with someone because they've improved you previously. You stick with someone because you believe they might improve you in the future. When it becomes clear that they will be unlikely to improve then you say thanks and move on to the next level. and Wilder would expect no different and he applies that principle to players. Matt Green scored a wonderful goal for us in the play off final, he was given a chance at League 2 level and shown not to be good enough, so Wilder said thanks and moved him on. that is the normal way of things.
As regards budgets, You only need take a look at gate levels and ticket prices to determine who has the biggest budget, because everyone works on the same formula of 55% of turnover. Other matchday revenue is tiny in comparison and makes very little difference.
There ar eonly 2 clubs with higher league attendances than us this season in League 2, Bradford, and Swinedown. Bradford's total attendance this season so far is 162,334 for 16 games, Swinedown's is 118658 for 15 games and our's is 114863 for 16 games. Bradford are still paying for their ground developments and had a disastrous first half of the season when they employed Peter Taylor who paid large salaries for crap players and so wasted their budget. Swindedown's is clearly marginally ahead of our budget.Crawley had to sell their best player for £800k to remain in budget because of their low crowds and they had some good cup runs. Their budget is way lower than ours and like him or not, Steve Evans is good at spotting low cost high value players, whereas Wilder is appalling at this. Shrewsbury's budget is 25% less than ours, Southend's is 20% less than our's and Paul Sturrock is a very good manager at this level.
The simple fact is that Wilder's method of signing players is to sign loads and hope that a few turn out to be good. He puts far too much emphasis on signing loads of strikers. We have very little midfield creativity in the side, and virtually no back up at centre back or full back.
The problem Wilder doesn't recognise is that it isn't the players that are the problem, it is Wilder's limited tactical ability and set ideas on formation. Wilder doesn't get the best out of the players he has signed, and he doesn't signed the right players anyway.
I think maybe my patience isn't the issue here, and you might want to provide some facts to support your theories.
Wilder's failures are beginning to cost us gate receipts and the longer term impact of that is a longer term in League 2.
I'll say it again, given the resources and facilities we have, we should be pushing for automatic promotion at this stage, rather than hanging on to the final play off place by our fingertips, with every likelihood of finishing this season outside the play offs.
I'll say it again, if Kelvin can identify someone very likely to improve us this season, then he should at least give it consideration. If not, and we do not reach at least the play off final this season, then I think we have to make a change in the summer.
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Paul Cooper
- Dashing young thing
- Posts: 658
- Joined: Thu Sep 07, 2006 9:16 pm
Truly shocking second half performance.
And how can we have what in excess of 10 corners with Leven taking them and not really look dangerous in any of them? I saw the cardiff Liverpool extra time and Carfiff were causing havoc against Liverpool with their corners.
But... the table doesn't lie and we deserve to be 7th. We are not a bad side and those below us are similarly inconsistent, fail to break teams down etc (we do I believe have a better goal difference than most below us?)
There is clearly a big problem in breaking down mass defences and this has been from the Conference days. Our home record is not good enough, and I agree to a certain extent with GY that the manager/ coaching team have to take a lot of the blame here as successive different players/ formations have failed to change this.
We almost need soemthing out of Saturdays game now ....
And how can we have what in excess of 10 corners with Leven taking them and not really look dangerous in any of them? I saw the cardiff Liverpool extra time and Carfiff were causing havoc against Liverpool with their corners.
But... the table doesn't lie and we deserve to be 7th. We are not a bad side and those below us are similarly inconsistent, fail to break teams down etc (we do I believe have a better goal difference than most below us?)
There is clearly a big problem in breaking down mass defences and this has been from the Conference days. Our home record is not good enough, and I agree to a certain extent with GY that the manager/ coaching team have to take a lot of the blame here as successive different players/ formations have failed to change this.
We almost need soemthing out of Saturdays game now ....
From my thread before last summer:
Here's Wilder's paradox. You have higher expectations now than you did before the summer, which is perfectly reasonable - great in fact. But those higher expectations are a result of how well his team have been playing!
Going back to that poll, at the end of last season most people expected us to get a play-off place, but not to win the playoffs. That was pretty realistic of us, to be honest - Wilder's record is that he beats the previous season's finishing place, and that would be on track.
I'm not saying he doesn't have his faults - in my opinion we need to get in a new scouting team and give them some sort of veto on his scattergun approach, and the coaching on basic skills is obviously not up to scratch for the level of football we're playing. But he does at least seem to have dropped his 'dog with a new toy' tendency that caused us so many mid-season problems in seasons past.
I also think my comment from back then is also important. If Wilder takes us from non-league to Division 3 in two seasons without an angel investor to make it easy, then our problem won't be getting rid of him, it'll be keeping him. Be careful what you wish for.[/list]
(not picking on you GY, everyone should pop back in there and read what they posted...including me!)"GodalmingYellow" wrote:I've gone for promotion via the play offs. That is certainly where we should be aiming.
I'm not remotely concerned about Crawley. All clubs have limitied lifespan if they don't cover their costs with income, and many clubs, us included, under-estimate the step up from the Conference and don't re-inforce the squad with sufficiently better players. The best players won't sign for Crawley.
The problem for Wilder, in my view, is that he hasn't released enough of the players who were sub-standard this season. I'm thinking of Asa Hall & Simon Heslop, and we need to sign 2 top quality strikers,and an attacking midfielder, each of which will take a big chunk of the budget, as it was the sharp end where we failed. Our goals against record wasn't that bad, but goals for was not promotion standard.
We also need cover at right back in the form of another attacking right back, another centre back to take the pressure off Worley, anothe rPotter type to play from midfield, a ball player from midfield, and probably a back up keeper, given the speculation over Eastwood.
This all assumes we plough on with the 4-3-3 trendy system, which is pretty crap in my view.
I have faith in Wilder - best Manager we've had for years.
25/1 is that for any promotion, or for auto promotion, or for the title? If just for any old promotion, that has to be worth a tenner.
Here's Wilder's paradox. You have higher expectations now than you did before the summer, which is perfectly reasonable - great in fact. But those higher expectations are a result of how well his team have been playing!
Going back to that poll, at the end of last season most people expected us to get a play-off place, but not to win the playoffs. That was pretty realistic of us, to be honest - Wilder's record is that he beats the previous season's finishing place, and that would be on track.
I'm not saying he doesn't have his faults - in my opinion we need to get in a new scouting team and give them some sort of veto on his scattergun approach, and the coaching on basic skills is obviously not up to scratch for the level of football we're playing. But he does at least seem to have dropped his 'dog with a new toy' tendency that caused us so many mid-season problems in seasons past.
I also think my comment from back then is also important. If Wilder takes us from non-league to Division 3 in two seasons without an angel investor to make it easy, then our problem won't be getting rid of him, it'll be keeping him. Be careful what you wish for.[/list]
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GodalmingYellow
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No problem at all Smiley, it's always good to be reminded. However, I don't think my comments now reflect any change on that position.
At that point, Wilder had taken us from a mediocre Conference side and put us back into the Football League and kept us there for one season. Exactly what we asked for and he delivered.
But maintenance in League 2 is not enough. Not for the resources that Wilder gets. I said in that earlier post before the season that we should be aiming for promotion via the play offs, and that is the same as I am saying now. If anything I am being generous now in only saying we should be aiming for the play off final.
I also said then that Wilder was the best manager we have had for years, and that remains true even now. But that isn't enough. Oxford United needs to be in League 1 at least in order to keep the 7,000|| crowds coming, otherwise the crowds will dwindle, the resources will drop and we keep League 2 status for a long time to come.
If Wilder gets us into League 1 and keeps us there, then I would be happy with that and happy to keep Wilder. But at present he doesn't look remotely like doing so and is struggling tactically to get us to play even reasonable football to beat some very poor teams at home. It isn't enough to play good football for 20 minutes one home game in four.Not nearly enough.
At present there are 5 or 6 sides below us playing better and mroe consistently than us, all of whom have tiny budgets. Instead of defending Wilder for using the 3rd largest budget in the division to scrape 7th position and look like losing it, we should be demanding that Wilder gets the team nearer to that 3rd place.
At that point, Wilder had taken us from a mediocre Conference side and put us back into the Football League and kept us there for one season. Exactly what we asked for and he delivered.
But maintenance in League 2 is not enough. Not for the resources that Wilder gets. I said in that earlier post before the season that we should be aiming for promotion via the play offs, and that is the same as I am saying now. If anything I am being generous now in only saying we should be aiming for the play off final.
I also said then that Wilder was the best manager we have had for years, and that remains true even now. But that isn't enough. Oxford United needs to be in League 1 at least in order to keep the 7,000|| crowds coming, otherwise the crowds will dwindle, the resources will drop and we keep League 2 status for a long time to come.
If Wilder gets us into League 1 and keeps us there, then I would be happy with that and happy to keep Wilder. But at present he doesn't look remotely like doing so and is struggling tactically to get us to play even reasonable football to beat some very poor teams at home. It isn't enough to play good football for 20 minutes one home game in four.Not nearly enough.
At present there are 5 or 6 sides below us playing better and mroe consistently than us, all of whom have tiny budgets. Instead of defending Wilder for using the 3rd largest budget in the division to scrape 7th position and look like losing it, we should be demanding that Wilder gets the team nearer to that 3rd place.
Re:
Interesting to read what the Huddersfield chairman had to say following"YF Dan" wrote:I agree with most of what GY has to say.
However, this is a conversation we need to have at the end of this season.
At this precise time, we are in a play-off spot, and for as long as we are, there's a chance we could go up. And for as long as we have that chance, Wilder is doing his job.
his decision to sack manager Lee Clark last week. Clark's three-year tenure at the club ended with the Terriers fourth in the League One table.
Hoyle told BBC Radio Leeds: "I had lost faith in his ability to get the club into the top two.
"I had also lost the faith that in a play-off final he could do it. The pressure would maybe have been too much for him." "
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I'm fairly sure that the club couldn't afford to get rid of Wilder/Lewis/Melville even if they wanted to at this stage of the season, and it is too late to find someone who could get us automatic promotion now.
But we have seen that we can get promoted via the play-offs with Wilder in charge.
I think we'll reach the playoffs this year, on the back of a strong season finish, and we'll be losing finalists - based on the possibility of having to beat the Shrews home and away, then the Turkeys at Wembley - that's a tough ask all in all, and there's no shame in doing that.
This table (http://stats.football365.com/dom/ENG/D3/runin.html) is quite handy, because it shows that of the teams below us only Port Vale and Aldershot look likely to snatch away our seventh place. The main problem is that we don't look like catching any of the teams above either.
On the other hand, I'm very confident that we'll get promoted next year. We do have a bigger budget, and most importantly a sensible management team in charge of it. Bad results like this weekend's happen, but then so will the great results - remember beating the Scum at their place?
My day job involves a lot of convincing people to not panic when the outliers in the data happen on their watch, and to concentrate on the underlying fundamentals for decision-making. Yes, we were crap on Saturday, but next weekend, when we make up 25% of THEIR season's L column, no-one will remember...
This table (http://stats.football365.com/dom/ENG/D3/runin.html) is quite handy, because it shows that of the teams below us only Port Vale and Aldershot look likely to snatch away our seventh place. The main problem is that we don't look like catching any of the teams above either.
On the other hand, I'm very confident that we'll get promoted next year. We do have a bigger budget, and most importantly a sensible management team in charge of it. Bad results like this weekend's happen, but then so will the great results - remember beating the Scum at their place?
My day job involves a lot of convincing people to not panic when the outliers in the data happen on their watch, and to concentrate on the underlying fundamentals for decision-making. Yes, we were crap on Saturday, but next weekend, when we make up 25% of THEIR season's L column, no-one will remember...
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Kernow Yellow
- Grumpy old git
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- Joined: Thu May 11, 2006 5:16 pm
Re:
Exactly. It is not absolutely essential that we get promotion this season, however much we'd all like it. Therefore there's no need to panic into any silly decision making when a couple of results don't go our way (we're still unbeaten in 6 games, by the way)."YF Dan" wrote:I agree with most of what GY has to say.
However, this is a conversation we need to have at the end of this season.
At this precise time, we are in a play-off spot, and for as long as we are, there's a chance we could go up. And for as long as we have that chance, Wilder is doing his job.
Wilder has done enough for this football club over the last few years to be given at least until the end of this season without people questioning whether he should still be in charge (and I know on this forum there's very little, if any, of that, but listening to phone-ins and looking at the Other Place there are quite a few people saying we should sack Wilder. Which is just plain ridiculous.
I worry that some of our fans' attitudes have reverted to that of our first couple of years in the Conference - we're a big team, we should be pissing this league. The fact is that we have no divine right to get promoted, we've only just come back from our non-league hell and people in general should show a little more patience. Frustration and impatience in the stands easily spreads to the pitch, and rarely does a team any good.