FAN’S VIEW 22/23 – No.39 – BYE BYE ROBBO

Below is what I was going to publish. I wrote it on Saturday evening and even though instinct told me I needed to get it out quickly, I didn’t hit the button there and then but waited until Sunday morning to put a couple of finishing touches to it. So totally out of date now but I can’t be arsed to re-write it or waste it so I’m sticking it out in the wild anyway.

Craig Short, Leon Blackmore-Such and Wayne Brown in the short term? We’ve just got to get behind them but where’s any evidence to say they’ll start getting us points?

What has just happened should have happened before now.

And what can a new permanent manager achieve with this imbalanced squad containing many unfit and injured players? I still have huge concerns but as my son pointed out, quite a few of these players were around when we were playing very good football and scoring goals.

The future is ??????????

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FAN’S VIEW 22/23 – No.39 – BRISTOL ROVERS AT HOME

Alternative Title

FAN’S VIEW 22/23 – No.39 – ROBINSON’S LAST GAME SURELY

Anyone who watches us regularly home and away will not have been surprised at the outcome here but it is getting worse and worse. WE ARE GOING DOWN, SAY, WE ARE GOING DOWN. Get used to it. Where are all these happy clappy the world is full of roses types now who earlier in the season said don’t talk such nonsense you horrible negative people when the R word was whispered. R = RELEGATION. Heads in the sand = RELEGATION. The board not having their finger on the pulse, what little there is of this football team = RELEGATION.

This has to be one of the worst runs, if not the worst run, ever in the history of Oxford United. In our last season in the top flight (until the next time …. how’s that for positivity?) we won nine points, all from draws, from our last 17 games. That’s 17.6% of points available actually won over that period. No bloody wonder we got relegated.

In the last eight matches we’ve achieved – now let’s get the calculator out and tot this up correctly – the following number of points …… drum roll ….. ONE. Fucking ONE. That’s 4.2% points won of those available.

ROBINSON OUT – NOW.

The decline started as has oft been documented at the back end of last season. Rumours or fact? “I couldn’t possibly comment” – as the saying goes. Some playing away from home wins points whilst some doesn’t. Instead it results in eyes being taken off (foot)balls big time.

The Gas were on an awful run coming into this. Once more we lost to such a team. This repetition shouts load and clear – at present we are THE WORST TEAM in League One.

One of the clutching at straws – which realists have known to be illusionary for some time now – arguments has been that even though we always concede we don’t let many in. True – but now that’s gone. Rovers got three here. Working backwards their League goal scoring has been 1,0,0, 0,1,0,0,2,2,3. How SHIT are we? And when they last scored three how many did they concede? Yes, four. They lost 4-3 to Exeter on 29 December.

We’re impotent. Couldn’t score in a …………

ROBINSON OUT – NOW.

We’ve had enough. More than enough.

Of course we’ve had some good times under Robbo but no-one can live on past glories forever. And how glorious were those glories really? Watching some very attractive football and seeing loads of goals but ultimately we fell short against Wycombe and Blackpool when it came to the acid test. Now we’re light years away from that.

I don’t know any fan who wants him to stay. Not even the mild mannered ones. Not even the very intelligent ones who process all the stuff we see before us logically. On Saturday I saw glassy eyed anger. I even heard “I want us to lose so he’s gone”. That was from someone whose opinion I value highly.

This is where we’re at.

ROBINSON OUT – NOW.

The season ticket holder who sits to the left of Mrs FV who isn’t vocal at all and hardly ever speaks, stood up at half time and said “This is shocking isn’t it?”. He walked to the toilets and didn’t reappear for the second half.

ROBINSON OUT – NOW.

At the end of the game I saw a guy in the toilets who used to live in the same street as me when I was a kid. He lives out London way now. He said “It’s a 120 mile round journey for me. I don’t care that I’ve got a season ticket. I’m not coming back whilst Robinson is in charge”.

All the discussion at the break and on leaving the ground was about how inept we are and highlighting the glaringly obvious weaknesses that everyone can see. The rating of Robinson’s current performance as manager of our football club out of ten is ZERO.

As a season ticket holder I don’t know what it costs to rock up on the day and part with hard earned cash in these inflationary times but it will be £20 plus. That has to be amongst the worst value spend anywhere in the country. Imagine buying a tin of baked beans at the supermarket and when opening it discovering just one bean inside instead of 465.

Sam Baldock, who had looked better than in his previous few minutes this season, lasted just 20 minutes. The best example yet of our “sick note signing” business plan? It’s not his fault. We’d all take that sort of money if it was offered even if we knew our bodies were not up to the task in hand.

His replacement Gatlin O’Donkor doesn’t look League One ready to me by a long way. There again with the team playing as appallingly as it is currently, who does?

No-one seems to know what they are supposed to be doing. Players appear to just be playing for themselves. Run with the ball as far as they can go before losing it. No-one supporting them. It’s a vicious circle. Nothing happening as a collective. No closing down with any effectiveness.

Good players playing badly. Individual errors all over the place. Not even doing the basics. I think it was Marcus Browne who, out on the touch line, had a simple pass backwards (yes there is a time for that occasionally) to his full-back to retain possession. That was the way he was facing. He was being tightly marked. Does he play that pass? Does he ****. Instead he turned into his marker and as sure as day follows night lost the ball. That’s criminal.

ROBINSON OUT – NOW.

We are a laughing stock.

The eleven we were left with at the end of the game would struggle in League Two.

Bringing James Henry on at half time wasn’t the worst call but it’s a puzzle to me why Yanic Wildschutt was the one who didn’t come back out. None of them are performing though are they?

I think even if we’d been allowed to play with 12 or 13 players we’re that bad we still wouldn’t have won. We made Rovers look good at times.

Beforehand I’d said to my family which of the two managers I thought would be better at getting their team up for a game like this when they were both in woeful form. It wasn’t our manager, in case you hadn’t guessed.

Everything about the performance and day as a whole was just plain wrong.

Not that it made any difference to the outcome but a 12:30 kick off, because there had been trouble when we’d played them a few years back, appeared over the top, as did the presence of a number of police horses. In these days of tight budgets what’s that all about?

That said there was a small amount of entertainment in the car park which provided pleasant alternative viewing to the fare on our tired looking pitch. The lad who legged it at speed from the constabulary should be identified and contacted forthwith as he was quicker than anything we had on the pitch.

This is the lowest I’ve felt since our return to the Football League. Everyone is on a downer. There’s no way we can raise our game in the stands knowing full well what’s going to happen.

Compare and contrast with the Gasheads. They filled the away section and got behind their boys. They probably have seen some hope in their recent performances that have brought many losses. I have not found any meaningful hope in ours – and believe me I’ve been searching.

We are of course without ultras, killed off by the club a few years back. They should have been nurtured. A huge miss now when it comes to atmosphere and financially too through the turnstiles. If they, or a new version created by their younger brothers, existed now I wonder how they would be reacting.

As if the day wasn’t bad enough, whilst walking back afterwards down Grenoble Road it got worse. On the opposite side of the road we heard frantic yelling as a couple were chasing a small dog as it ran at pace down a footpath towards the road. It didn’t stop. I felt for them and the driver.

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With just under a quarter of an hour to kick off

Cooking on Gas

Energy crisis