Scoring in the Rain

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Dr Bob
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Scoring in the Rain

Post by Dr Bob »

So, four successive 3-0 home wins in the league, to make sure that "up the football league we go". Same style of play, passing it around patiently whilst looking for an opening, then going for it. So, trying to find something different/new to say about this game:

Yes, Rochdale had won their last three games, but I have just read that they have still not beaten a team outside of the bottom 6 all season - and it showed.

Seeing the highlights, I was really impressed by Ruffels' late run to receive Gorrin's header for the first goal.

I thought Fosu's finish was one of the coolest I have ever seen. That is a man in form and bursting with confidence.

For the last 15-20 minutes, when we had corners Rochdale brought everybody back. I could not believe we were not playing the ball short or further out, where we had players in space. Finally we did that with Hall's free kick and we scored from it.

There were differing opinions on whether the red card was the right decision, but the ref was in an excellent position. Credit to him for that - although he needs to learn the (new?) rule for what to do when the ball strikes the ref...

Quite a few people seemed to think we should have gone for it and tried to score a hat-full. I was happy for us just to control the ball, play it simple and not over-exert ourselves before Tuesday.

I am beginning to wonder just how important Gary Parker is becoming. As I understand it, he goes off, scouts upcoming opponents and then in training sets up a team to mirror how they play, for our (presumably) starting 11 to play against. OK, so we are developing a clear style of play, but recently we have played teams with different approaches and we have been dealing with them all extremely efficiently.

Rochdale were yet another team where 'playing out from the back' now means playing it across inside the penalty area for our front players to press. Utter stupidity - and long may it continue.
Radley Rambler
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Re: Scoring in the Rain

Post by Radley Rambler »

Dr Bob wrote: Sun Oct 27, 2019 12:47 pm So, four successive 3-0 home wins in the league, to make sure that "up the football league we go". Same style of play, passing it around patiently whilst looking for an opening, then going for it. So, trying to find something different/new to say about this game:

Yes, Rochdale had won their last three games, but I have just read that they have still not beaten a team outside of the bottom 6 all season - and it showed.

Seeing the highlights, I was really impressed by Ruffels' late run to receive Gorrin's header for the first goal.

I thought Fosu's finish was one of the coolest I have ever seen. That is a man in form and bursting with confidence.

For the last 15-20 minutes, when we had corners Rochdale brought everybody back. I could not believe we were not playing the ball short or further out, where we had players in space. Finally we did that with Hall's free kick and we scored from it.

There were differing opinions on whether the red card was the right decision, but the ref was in an excellent position. Credit to him for that - although he needs to learn the (new?) rule for what to do when the ball strikes the ref...

Quite a few people seemed to think we should have gone for it and tried to score a hat-full. I was happy for us just to control the ball, play it simple and not over-exert ourselves before Tuesday.

I am beginning to wonder just how important Gary Parker is becoming. As I understand it, he goes off, scouts upcoming opponents and then in training sets up a team to mirror how they play, for our (presumably) starting 11 to play against. OK, so we are developing a clear style of play, but recently we have played teams with different approaches and we have been dealing with them all extremely efficiently.

Rochdale were yet another team where 'playing out from the back' now means playing it across inside the penalty area for our front players to press. Utter stupidity - and long may it continue.
I agree - it was like watching a cat toy with a half-dead mouse when you know the mouse has had it and the cat is enjoying the thrill of the extended kill. Mind you, if Rochdale had netted one with ten minutes to go.........

Excellent, excellent run recently and so let's hope Brannagan and Cadden's injuries are minor and they're back for Saturday. If we lost Brannagan, we'd lose a lot from midfield.
Hog
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Re: Scoring in the Rain

Post by Hog »

The second half had a surreal feel to it especially with Rochdale starting with only nine as they'd apparently forgotten to tell the referee they were making a substitution at half time. Or had they forgotten to tell the sub he was coming on? Bizarre!

Another fine result but I admit I was one of the disappointed ones who felt we should have racked up a lot more goals. There's no doubt we tried to but we weren't very good at it which is obviously a MAD thing to say when we've been scoring plenty! Perhaps more accurate to say we weren't very good at it in the second half yesterday (and their keeper did make 2-3 excellent saves). Obviously three was more than enough but we should be scoring as many as possible to boost an already impressive GD which could be worth an extra point come May.

Everybody played well and Sam Long was fantastic as Cadden's replacement and the way he was mobbed after his goal was a pleasure to watch. Baptiste looked very cool when he came on and was spraying the ball around nicely and looked strong. I know it's usually the flair players who get MOTM but for me it would be Gorrin with another solid performance. Oh and Eastwood is a lazy arse! Took about four goal kicks and did nothing else!
Werthers Original
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Re: Scoring in the Rain

Post by Werthers Original »

I think the second half showed that at our level players need to be functioning at the top level of focus and motivation to succeed. It was so easy that they maybe got a bit sloppy, which could have cost us at 2-0. The number of times shots went just the wrong side of that post! Still, 3-0 job done.
recordmeister
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Re: Scoring in the Rain

Post by recordmeister »

Gorrin was the MOM for me. The man seems to have 61 seconds in every min. He didn't leave anything untouched and went for every single ball, first time, second time and sometimes even the third time. It is easy to pick out 'key' players in our team, but I really think he is the one who would hard to replace should he find himself injured.

And when was the last time an Oxford side won at home with goals from both the right and left back?! Astonishing, really.

This was my first 'live' performance of the season and I was fearing for the worst, due to the horrendous conditions, and the run that Rochdale where on. My biggest pre-match disappointment was not to be able to see Matty Taylor play, as I'd like to see him a second time around in a yellow shirt. But what a job the lads did out there. Such confidence, ability and just really well balanced.

I'm going to start a thread on why I think we might be doing so well, to open that up to more general discussion but for me, on Sat, the two biggest differences between the way we are playing at the moment, and the way we played under MApp are:

1. This side feels much more balanced, and less reliant on a few really, really excellent players.
2. The side feels less transient than under MApp- we had a buy-and-sell policy then, and we still do now (cf. Whyte) but I always felt that under the MApp regime, we were only really showcasing these players either on behalf of another club, or to line our own (chairmans?) pocket. Here, it feels like we will sell if we can replace (Whyte for Fosu), but the no 1 priory is to use the squad for promotion, not profit.
Isaac
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Re: Scoring in the Rain

Post by Isaac »

I think the test of promotion not profit theory will come in the January window. Brannagan in particular is likely to attract a lot of interest.
What impressed me (via ifollow, so it's not the same) is the energy of the front players to win the ball back after they'd lost it, these days it's probably called a high press, but whatever it's called it's been well coached and meant Rochdale never got much in the way of possession. It was a very one sided game even before the sending off.
This sort of style of play is likely to lead to injuries though, Cadden did his hamstring after running the length of the pitch on a breakaway and our forward players put in more tackles than you'd normally expect (the Brannagan injury). Our success this season is likely to be reliant of how we manage with various players injured or sold.

I've no complaints about the 2nd half, other than some suspect finishing, although if the Rochdale offside goal hadn't been ruled out (correctly from what I could see) it might have been more tense. Generally though this is a great time to be watching Oxford.
slappy
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Re: Scoring in the Rain

Post by slappy »

As said above, it's a great time to be watching us and are doing great in the form table and not just winning by the odd goal. It always takes a lot of momentum for home crowds to pick up but hopefully they will. Apart from Coventry and West Ham there haven't really been any big matches to attract fans (perhaps add Millwall though that perhaps puts people off). So looking at the fixtures, the picks are probably Inswich (unless postponed for international withdrawals), Shrewsbury, Wycombe, Lincoln all before the end of the year.

Moving onto next year, AFC Wimbledon always have a good following, Sunderland, MK Dons, Bristol Rovers, Bolton are the ones to look forward to.

The January transfer window will be interesting. This squad shouldn't be broken up, but the club is still presumably losing millions per year which needs to be funded somehow. I thought I read an interview about changes in shareholdings which suggested that day-to-day finance was still down to Tiger (my reading that a bigger infrastructure / stadium play might get the others involved). Over on the other site, the poster ScotchEgg seems to be very close to the club as his posts in recent months seem effectively to be a club PR spin, and is now suggesting some sort of stadium deal seems closer (not clear if moving away or staying).

We've also been told there will be money available in January if needed, but I suspect if a decent offer comes in, possibly we'll have to take it. Gavin Whyte was valued at £4M but went for apparently £2M up to £3M with add-ons - though it may have been that he wanted a Championship move in order to get picked for Northern Ireland.
Kernow Yellow
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Re: Scoring in the Rain

Post by Kernow Yellow »

It does feel wrong to be critical, but I also thought we should have put Rochdale to bed a bit earlier, particularly once they went down to ten men. Not just because we seemed to take our foot off the gas a bit, but there were some sloppy moments too. But we are a pleasure to watch at the moment, and this team is the real deal. The biggest threat to our success is the team breaking up - whether that’s through being sold or getting injured. Last night showed what a different team we are without Brannagan - for all Gorrin’s work rate, it’s Brannagan’s positional awareness and pinpoint passing that makes our midfield. Gorrin only ever passes to a centre back, or a full back if you’re lucky. And quite often to our goalkeeper.

My MotM would be Ruffels though, who didn’t put a foot wrong, and that ridiculous Cruyff turn right in front of where we were sitting was sublime. He was playing as a virtual left winger for much of the game too. Great to watch.
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