James Constable

[GodalmingYellow]

To say we look like a 'relegation threatened' squad three weeks into the close season is er.. am I allowed to say it ...bonkers. Let's at least see who the new recruits are before sticking our heads in the oven.

And we do have the basis of a good defence - Raynes is being unfairly maligned by some - he is a good stopper at this level. And Long also looks like a decent prospect to this supporter as well.

Ah the good old trick of quoting someone incorrectly to make a point that wasn't being argued, and to divert the argument away from the fundamental point of the thread.

What I actually said was that the squad AT PRESENT looks like relegation material.

There was no inherent assumption of the signing of relegation fodder players, although it wouldn't surprise me at all.

Look the club is in a dangerous position. Much more serious than many fans bother to think about.

The finances are dire.
The stadium position is dire.
We've pushed our best player out of the door for no good reason.
We will need to sign a lot of very decent players to have any chance of avoiding a relegation battle.
We will need to sign several high class strikers and creative midfielders and full backs which will cost huge amounts of money.
Lenegan has already begun to intimate that he is not going to spend forever, quite rightly.
The stadium lease will be up for renewal in the short to medium term, with zero prospect of Kassam allowing the rent to be reduced and no option for the club to play elsewhere, thereby forced into a rent hike.
We have a very weak squad, which even with our best players, spent the last half of the season playing automatic relegation form.

The club is being run very very badly at present, and I for one can easily see us having to face the prospect of playing against Constable and Eastleigh in 2015/16.

There are too many glad to see the back of our best assets under the false premise of cost saving, or the false premise of conjuring up a 20 goals a season striker for nothing, and too many who ignore the problems the club faces and the effects that these bad decisions have on the club and on the lifeblood of ticket sales. Too many shoving their heads in the sand because they don't have answers, or because they falsely think "it will be alright". Not good enough. Not nearly good enough. That's how clubs fail.

[SmileyMan]

To clarify my position, amid all this heat and acrimony, I like James Constable as a person, I like him as a player, when he told PDC where to go it was awesome, and he's scored a lot of goals for the club.

However, in the second half of the season, he scored 3 goals, and in my opinion it was because he was just not sharp enough to beat L2 defenders and keepers any more. Listening to RadOx as us exiles are forced to do, the overriding memory was of many of his shots being cut out or comfortably saved, and it stopped being 'bad luck' after a while.

As for saying we should keep him because he's got six years of history, well six years ago he was 23 and playing against Conference sides, so any comparison is meaningless. At his age, against League Two opposition, he's just not very good.

[neilw]

"The stadium lease will be up for renewal in the short to medium term, with zero prospect of Kassam allowing the rent to be reduced and no option for the club to play elsewhere"

Is there not a ground in Witney waiting to be developed and utilised? London Welsh appear to have used it, in support of their negotiations with Kassam.

[SWA]

No, no, no...
Moving to Witney is NOT the answer....
Transport problems there would be even worse

[joepoolman]

I could put a massive post about this but GY probably presents my opinions better than I would.

I would like to say that I'm sick of an obsession in football for a "20 goal-a-season" striker. In the last 3 seasons Chesterfield, Slumdon and Gillingham have won League 2 with top scorers scoring 11, 14, and 11 goals respectively.

[GodalmingYellow]

"The stadium lease will be up for renewal in the short to medium term, with zero prospect of Kassam allowing the rent to be reduced and no option for the club to play elsewhere"

Is there not a ground in Witney waiting to be developed and utilised? London Welsh appear to have used it, in support of their negotiations with Kassam.

London Welsh have no geographical link with Oxford.

OUFC have always been within the city boundaries. Neither Kassam nor Lenegan would be silly enough to get involved in negotiations based around a threatened move to Witney, which would alienate large sections of the fanbase.

[Mooro]

In defence of, er, the defence, did we not have the best defensive record in League two for a large part of the season, with these very same players?

Ok, it fell off in the latter part when the front end dried up and the momentum turned against them, but I can see the logic in using that same group as the base for the coming season, and focusing the acquisition strategy on the other end of the pitch. With a more productive attacking force, they should easily be capable of holding the fort to gain results, should they not?

I accept that, in an ideal world, more attacking fullbacks may suit the Waddock way more, but perhaps he feels he has seen a good thing and stuck with in order to focus on the front six (particularly if his budget is limited) rather than try to fix something that doesn't need fixing straight away......?

[Snake]

"The stadium lease will be up for renewal in the short to medium term, with zero prospect of Kassam allowing the rent to be reduced and no option for the club to play elsewhere"

Is there not a ground in Witney waiting to be developed and utilised? London Welsh appear to have used it, in support of their negotiations with Kassam.

The only workable escape plan is CPF should the worst happen, though we’d have to deal with TAG charging Us rent.

[The Enforcer]

The next few weeks are crucial. We have to make some good signings now. Not big-money signings, not big names, just solid, promising talent whose careers are on an upward trajectory rather than heading the other way.

Scott Boden, a 24 year old striker appears to be out of contract at the end of next month. For 2013/14 he scored 21 goals in 44 appearances for Macclesfield Town in the Conference even though they finished in the lower half of the table. He could be a useful acquisition if we can offer a better contract than Macclesfield?

[Jimski]

Rumours that we are poised to sign a new striker early next week. Also that Cambridge are sniffing around old-boy Dave Kitson.

[recordmeister]

GY, don't forget that in spirit we are Headington United; a team who cynically changed their name in a marketing bid to get into the football league (which worked) so your argument of staying within the city limits is a bit off. If you wanted to be true to the spirit of the club, you should be insisting that we stayed in headington.

In this respect we are no worse than Manchester United taking the 'football club' off their logo for the best part of 15 years to better their marketing, or Woolwich Arsenal moving to North London.

[Kairdiff Exile]

GY, don't forget that in spirit we are Headington United; a team who cynically changed their name in a marketing bid to get into the football league (which worked) so your argument of staying within the city limits is a bit off. If you wanted to be true to the spirit of the club, you should be insisting that we stayed in headington.

Sorry, but that's a daft point. Our name change simply reflected the fact that by that point we had superseded Oxford City as the county's predominant side and as such should have a name that reflected that (Headington being a suburb of Oxford and all that). Implying that it was in some way comparable to MK Dons or similar to what Hull City are doing is frankly beneath you.

[Jimski]

To be fair, I'd far rather we had stayed at the Manor.

[GodalmingYellow]

GY, don't forget that in spirit we are Headington United; a team who cynically changed their name in a marketing bid to get into the football league (which worked) so your argument of staying within the city limits is a bit off. If you wanted to be true to the spirit of the club, you should be insisting that we stayed in headington.

In this respect we are no worse than Manchester United taking the 'football club' off their logo for the best part of 15 years to better their marketing, or Woolwich Arsenal moving to North London.

I can't dispute that!

[Snake]

To be fair, I'd far rather we had stayed at the Manor.

With a new ground capacity of less than 2,000 that the FLA would have imposed on the Manor you’d be one of many camping out right now on the Beech Road waiting for the ticket office to open on Tuesday.