Worst start to the league since...

[SmileyMan]

2008/09, when Patterson's side lost 0-3 to Barrow and 1-0 to Weymouth. Good grief those are miserable memories. At least we followed that with the 6-3 win over Eastbourne. If we only draw on Tuesday night we'll be harking back to 2001, and a third loss would see us travelling another year backwards to the horror show of Denis' swansong.

Bad starts don't make good seasons, it seems.

[Kernow Yellow]

Someone's plagiarising you (badly) on the other side. Or maybe you're plagiarising yourself in your less literate YF guise?

But yes, we can't afford to keep losing or the gap to the top will quickly become very daunting. Having said that, last season started with one of the very best days in all of my OUFC-watching life, and we proceeded to rack up three consecutive wins for the second year running. And look where that got us! It finished with me feeling about as low about football as I've ever felt. It's how you do over the course of a season that counts, not when you do it.

I actually think we've got some decent players, but I'm not convinced this formation is suited to the rigours of League 2. Another loss tonight and I think Appleton should revert to something more straightforward and solid. But let's hope I'm proved wrong...

[SmileyMan]

Someone's plagiarising you (badly) on the other side. Or maybe you're plagiarising yourself in your less literate YF guise?

The first time I've visited YF in a year is when I just clicked that link! I'd certainly never post there......

Still, imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, I think?

The sale/takeover/change in management has been about as badly maanged as can be, but that's not really the fault of the players and coaching staff. I suspect that with a bit more time to evaluate the current squad, a bit more of a clue as to how big a budget, and a decent scouting network, we can make a decent challenge after January, so the key is to stay somewhere roughly in contention until then.

[Boogie]

Wow. 18 shots and we still can't score.

[OUFC4eva]

Worse start since 1991 when we started with five straight league defeats under Brian Horton.
United also played decent football that season and stayed up at Tranmere on the final day.
That was what we now call the Championship and we had really good players
in Andy Melville, Paul Simpson, Jim Magilton, John Durnin and Mark Stein.

Joey Beauchamp then broke into the side that winter.

Look at our gates that season for heavens sake!

http://www.rageonline.co.uk/mainpage/season/33/

EDIT: United lost the first four league games of the nightmare season that was 2000/2001.

[theox]

Not often an opposing manager is so honest...

http://www.lancasterguardian.co.uk/spor ... -1-6794748

[Yankee Clipper]

Bentley has pretty much got it spot on there..

No one wants to start the season with 3 straight defeats however I can see what Appleton is trying to achieve, when it gels it could be something special. At times we are looking a very good side. The move that lead to Hylton's header being saved was sublime (he should have scored though). We are moving the ball about very well albeit a little too slowly at times and we need a more decisive final ball. We can be guilty of doing the hard work and then back peddling and trying to do it again. But that is naivety and will be trained out of them. Some of the players are starting to look comfortable with the system. Last night we didn't get the result we deserved. It will come, I'm quite looking forward to an OUFC season in reverse!

Tough game Saturday though

[ty cobb]

I'm sorry but very good teams don't lose 3 league games on the bounce scoring only one goal in the process.

Other managers got slated for bringing in loans to fill gaps, however, that seems to be the solution now for OUFC. Given the age of the players we're bringing I get the feeling we're going for the cheap option and I see no benefit of bringing in a teenager when Roberts had such a good pre season.

I've never been so thoroughly fed up with being an Oxford fan, at least last season when things were going well we could forget about the stadium situation which is slowly strangling us, however, now things are just as bad on the pitch and it's very hard to see where any improvement is coming from.

We've a manager who has failed at every club he's been at, owners who I have no idea why they're interested in the club and seem somewhat clueless (not speaking to Kassam before buying the club, budgeting for 6000 crowds) and fewer and fewer players who actually seem to give a damn about playing for the club. All this is resulting in fans drfiting away making the atmosphere very sterile. Yes gates were low in the 90's but they never felt low at the Manor which was always an exciting day out with plenty of atmosphere and pubs to drink at beforehand. Now you have to turn up 90 minutes before kick off to be able to park within a 30 minute walk of the stadium, have the choices of paying(!) to enter a bar, a hotel lobby or a bowling alley to drink at to be followed by a wind swept 90 minutes of misery in near silence.

Still roll on Sat.

[OUFC4eva]

Yes gates were low in the 90's but they never felt low at the Manor which was always an exciting day out

What absolute hogwash Ty.

You could roll up at the London Road entrance at ten to three on a match day in the 80's
and 90's even, stand on a piss drenched terrace, asbestos roof above you, crap programme,
and a cup of shitty bovril watching Billy Jeffrey facing his own goal for ninety minutes.

Exciting my @rse.

[GodalmingYellow]

Bentley has pretty much got it spot on there..

No one wants to start the season with 3 straight defeats however I can see what Appleton is trying to achieve, when it gels it could be something special. At times we are looking a very good side. The move that lead to Hylton's header being saved was sublime (he should have scored though). We are moving the ball about very well albeit a little too slowly at times and we need a more decisive final ball. We can be guilty of doing the hard work and then back peddling and trying to do it again. But that is naivety and will be trained out of them. Some of the players are starting to look comfortable with the system. Last night we didn't get the result we deserved. It will come, I'm quite looking forward to an OUFC season in reverse!

Tough game Saturday though

I can't see how you arrive at any of those conclusions unless you've had your eyes shut.

Sublime? Some people are easily pleased. It was a straightforward cross after mediocre passing in the middle of the park. Hylton was completely unmarked and with plenty of time, and should have scored easily. It was Conference standard stuff.

Any team can move the ball about in their own half all night long, but it doesn't win football matches.

The "system" such as it is, is shockingly rigid and the players look like boys against men, which funnily enough many of them are.

I can kind of understand some people having new season optimism thinking it will all come good. The reality is that it isn't coming good because it isn't very good.

[ty cobb]

Yes gates were low in the 90's but they never felt low at the Manor which was always an exciting day out

What absolute hogwash Ty.

You could roll up at the London Road entrance at ten to three on a match day in the 80's
and 90's even, stand on a piss drenched terrace, asbestos roof above you, crap programme,
and a cup of shitty bovril watching Billy Jeffrey facing his own goal for ninety minutes.

Exciting my @rse.

I'm not sure what a player who last played for us in 1982 has to do with with football in the 90's. If you didn't want to stand on London Road you had a number of other options if you wanted to avoid the piss - to be honest I never had a problem with avoiding it on the LR, maybe you were unlucky.

You must be the one of the only Oxford fans out there that doesn't miss the Manor,

[GodalmingYellow]

Yes gates were low in the 90's but they never felt low at the Manor which was always an exciting day out

What absolute hogwash Ty.

You could roll up at the London Road entrance at ten to three on a match day in the 80's
and 90's even, stand on a piss drenched terrace, asbestos roof above you, crap programme,
and a cup of shitty bovril watching Billy Jeffrey facing his own goal for ninety minutes.

Exciting my @rse.

I'm not sure what a player who last played for us in 1982 has to do with with football in the 90's. If you didn't want to stand on London Road you had a number of other options if you wanted to avoid the piss - to be honest I never had a problem with avoiding it on the LR, maybe you were unlucky.

You must be the one of the only Oxford fans out there that doesn't miss the Manor,

Maybe it's Firoz in disguise!

[Kairdiff Exile]

You must be the one of the only Oxford fans out there that doesn't miss the Manor,

I've said it before and I'll say it again: whatever the economics of it, whatever the long-term shortcomings it may have had, I'd take the Manor back in a heartbeat. It was the Manor that made me fall in love with football, whereas the stadium at Grenoble Road pretty much represents everything that I now find objectionable about it.

[Jimski]

You must be the one of the only Oxford fans out there that doesn't miss the Manor,

I've said it before and I'll say it again: whatever the economics of it, whatever the long-term shortcomings it may have had, I'd take the Manor back in a heartbeat. It was the Manor that made me fall in love with football, whereas the stadium at Grenoble Road pretty much represents everything that I now find objectionable about it.

Word. (As they say nowadays...

[Eric Pollard]

Yes gates were low in the 90's but they never felt low at the Manor which was always an exciting day out

What absolute hogwash Ty.

You could roll up at the London Road entrance at ten to three on a match day in the 80's
and 90's even, stand on a piss drenched terrace, asbestos roof above you, crap programme,
and a cup of shitty bovril watching Billy Jeffrey facing his own goal for ninety minutes.

Exciting my @rse.

I'm not sure what a player who last played for us in 1982 has to do with with football in the 90's. If you didn't want to stand on London Road you had a number of other options if you wanted to avoid the piss - to be honest I never had a problem with avoiding it on the LR, maybe you were unlucky.

You must be the one of the only Oxford fans out there that doesn't miss the Manor,

I also don't miss the Manor; not in its final few sad years at least . Our current stadium is not a windswept soulless horror either - problem is that we have never had any consistently exciting football at our current home - get that going and no one will complain about the atmosphere.