Rage Online

On the face of it, it doesn't look very good does it: we lose our top scorer, and our captain possibly both on the same day. Equally, I'm as bullish as ever about putting a squad of professionals together that actually want to play for the club, and that these players are equally assets who, if they want to leave for a fee before their contract ends, then fine. Let's not forget that for years we weren't paying fees nor being payed for players. At least we are in that game now.

In other news, Sheff Utd are set for two major windfalls with money coming in mainly from a reported 10% cut of Walkers £42m transfer to Man City. Crazy. Wilder has been reported on the BBC website as saying that they are 'making offers all over the place'. Sounds like the money has gone to his head, and we all know the level of player turn over CW can have when he has no money to spend. How his palace will be full of guided knick-knacks now he's got a slush fund. I bet you they field over 45 players this season in their bid for promotion...

Kairdiff Exile wrote: ↑Thu Jul 20, 2017 9:27 am but to mess Oxford about for so long and then leave a club where's he's adored to go to bloody Bury... well, I think it reflects badly on him (to put it mildly).

Do we know he 'messed Oxford about'? I've seen nothing from the club implying we were desperate to sign him. Yes he's a fans favourite but who knows what goes on behind the scenes? I notice that Maguire has signed a 2-year deal at Bury, which may well be more than we were offering (cf Hylton et al).

Also there's a bit of disrespect for the Northerners going on here. Fleetwood were above Us all season and seem to be on an upward trajectory. And Bury are a historic club on the outskirts of Manchester - probably a better city for a footballer to be based in than Oxford, especially a footballer who lives in Scotland.

i'm feeling fairly sanguine about all this.

lundstram is a player we'll miss I'm sure, but is replaceable - if not already replaced by ledstrom. and I hope this sale means we can fend off approaches for johnson now having made 'our player sale' for the season. with this as our model, we have to accept players like lundstram move on and if we're getting good money for them this is a sign of the model. the key with the change of head coach is are the players we're bringing in the next roofe/o'dowda/lundstram.

that said, if we'd known appleton was leaving I just wish we could have held on to sercombe. he's the loss I'm most concerned about in retrospect.

maguire is much harder to replace but always felt like a bit of a one-off who we were lucky to have, and while I'd love to have him stay with Us, if it meant we would be breaking the bank I understand. as others say though: bury, really?

oh well. good luck to both lundstram and maguire, a lot of good memories from both of them.

Am I the only one thinking that it seems to be taking a very long time for the Lundstram transfer to be confirmed. Its on neither OUFC nor SUFC websites yet, and he drove up on Wednesday to do the deal.

Lundstram wiki page did for a few hours say he was a Sheffield United player in the right side career summary, but that now seems to have reverted to OUFC.

Something not right there methinks.

I'm a little confused at the moment. We were told Pep's method was going to be a continuation of our successful model of the past few seasons of buying young, hungry players on the way up.

Yet we appear to be doing the exact opposite. Rather feeling excited by any of our signings, I'm increasingly worried that we're chucking money at people who have little short, medium or long term potential.

This is a close-season to forget, so far.

YF Dan wrote: ↑Sat Jul 22, 2017 11:01 pm I'm a little confused at the moment. We were told Pep's method was going to be a continuation of our successful model of the past few seasons of buying young, hungry players on the way up.

Yet we appear to be doing the exact opposite. Rather feeling excited by any of our signings, I'm increasingly worried that we're chucking money at people who have little short, medium or long term potential.

This is a close-season to forget, so far.

Like Phil Edwards, Aaron Martin and Wes Thomas. There is nothing like a couple of pre-season defeats
to bring out a melodrama in people!

With the departure of Mags, Sercombe, Edwards and Skarz, we have lost four of the older, more experienced players. Maybe there is a need to bring in a few older heads to give balance to the younger players, many of whom are still with us. Second, my sense is that loan deals tend to be done later in the transfer window, or in January - and we have not done so badly from those deals in recent years (Roofe, Martinez, etc). Third, whilst initially I felt a bit like YF Dan, on reflection the reality is that marquee signings, the sort of players whose name alone will get supporters buzzing, has not really been the recent Oxford way.

The other thing that we cannot possibly know is the mental ability of players. As Appleton has said, a major problem for us last season was a drop in performance at key moments in certain games. At our best we could beat anybody in that division. But...

My excitement for the new season is seeing how the new signings blend in and the new squad performs. My concern - as every year - is that by the time I get back from holiday and start going to games in early September, that excitement will already have worn off.

It would help if the club knew which players we were actually looking at!

I think the Lundstram sale (assuming it happens) is a clear continuation of our model. We've still got a number of young players with potential to develop and sell on (Ledson, Nelson, Johnson, Ruffels, Carroll etc) and just signed Xemi on a 3-year deal. It looks like business as usual to me. We still need a left-back though.

I see that Mike Williamson has signed on a one year contract.

Is this some experience to add to the squad or will he start with a CB to leave?

U's sign attacking midfielder Jack Payne, 22 on a season long loan from
Huddersfield Town.

If LB Tom Field joins on a season long loan from Brentford, I would be very happy with the squad we have assembled for the start of the season.

Let me be the first to say on here well done DE, Pep and all involved.

Well I suppose a Brazilian left back with champions league experience might do

Welcome Ricardinho.

We seem to be signing an awful lot of 30+ players. Perhaps we can make a profit on them when they peak at 35?

I'm going to criticise the recruitment team.

Why did we sign a 21 year centre back, who had never played a first team match, and then sign too many other centre backs so that we end up having to loan said 21 year out to low level non-league football? We can't afford to be wasting resources like that, and I would imagine that Celtic Reserve play at a much higher standard than Solihull Moors 1st XI, so it isn't good for the player or the club.

Are we now the retirement home for ageing left backs? The two signings in this position pose higher injury risk, no doubt higher wages, and do not sit well with the club's stated recruitment policy. Skarz wasn't a leading light, but he wasn't a bad player.

When Pep asked for a Brazilian, are we sure Daryl Eales understood what he wanted?

For me we look short up top, with a barrage of mediocre strikers. I also think we look short on creativity.

I'm with you, GY. I'm not sure Clotet has realised just how competitive this league is, and I fear that him bringing in a lot of his ageing mates will backfire. I don't think we'll be relegated, but I absolutely think we'll be bog-standard mid-table fare on the basis of the squad we have. Not the end of the world given the change of manager at an inopportune time, and we may get a cup run if we're lucky - but we need to make sure that any players we bring in during the course of the season fit the "DNA" by being promising youngsters with strong technical ability rather than also-rans.