Big game

[Hog]

Another fine win but only one mention of Chris Wilder on this thread: are we second with only one defeat (to the leaders) in nine because of him or in spite of him? Guess we'll have to wait til the next dropped points at home for those comments!

[A-Ro]

despite being the most shot-shy team in the entire division

Close but not quite.

Hmm, your figures don't seem to tally with that 'visualisation', which shows us furthest left on the chart with about 8.1 shots per game. Maybe one or the other set of data includes cup games, or they get their stats from separate sources.

Nice table insertion, by the way.

The figures I found don't appear to contain cup games.

As an aside the website I nicked them from has a predictions section and it predicts a draw for Saturday.

[A-Ro]

Nice table insertion, by the way.

Thank you for the compliment. Putting the table in was dead easy, getting the table off the website on the other hand was a nightmare. It just wouldn't work at all in Firefox but strangely IE8 was a bit better and even then I had to do a lot of formatting in UltraEdit to get the data right and to display properly. Hence the extra space in Transfer% which was a result of clumsy editing on my part.

[Paul Cooper]

Another fine win but only one mention of Chris Wilder on this thread: are we second with only one defeat (to the leaders) in nine because of him or in spite of him? Guess we'll have to wait til the next dropped points at home for those comments!

On the basis that the manager takes the flak when things go badly, there is no doubt in my mind that it is because of him that we are doing so well.

The problem in the past couple of years is that we can suddenly lose a good position by a terrible run of results. Hopefully that will not be the case this season.

[recordmeister]

What hasn't been mentioned is the management of the manager; the big key here imho.

What would have happened, on sat, it this had been any of the other previous seasons? My guess is that we'd have had two loanees on the pitch and probably another one on the bench, made up of 30-something league cloggers who we've got in as 'emergy cover' and who someone like Crawley are desperatly trying to get off their wage bill under the guise of him 'needing to get some game time'.

The fact that we won is neither here-nor-there (we should be beating Hartlepool away, with their current record, whoever the personel) but the fact that Wilder has been forced into actually proeprly using his squad is really a great development.

We might be looking at it another way, if the games had been in reverse and we'd lost Kitson and Whing vs Hartlepool for a game against Chesterfield.

I, for one, am very pleased with the way the Board have handled CW this season, being strong enough to say a firm "NO" to him. If we start to lose, he has a good excuse ("the kids aren't good enough") but at the moment neither CW, nor the fans, can grumble.

[YF Dan]

I'll also mention Chris Wilder.

He's a perfectly acceptable manager most of the time, except when he has total brain meltdown and starts panicking about the opposition and concocting plans in his head to counter their threats.

If he just concentrated on us, built a team and system that worked, and stuck to it we'd all be happier.

We're having a good start to the season, although Pompey aside we haven't pulled off any incredible results yet (and it's not like Pompey are tearing up trees at the moment). The one really decent team we've played freaked our manager a week before kick-off and stuffed us on the day.

Here's hoping for a good attacking victory on Saturday. I'm bringing the wee lad so I hope CW has been working all week on getting us to play some flowing football.

[Paul Cooper]

I don't disagree with what YF Dan said, but it was interesting to see Simon Grayson's view on Preston v Swin***. Preston have had an excellent start to the season but his comments after they won 2-1 were

'Slumdon are a good footballing team and we knew we had to stop them from playing. The players worked extremely hard not to allow them to get into their routine of playing, and when we played, we looked very good'

I would suggest that in the respective leagues Swin*** are not a patch on Chesterfield.

To a certain extent CW took that approach when beating Swin*** at home when we beat them in the league and it tended to work.

So I would prefer us to attack the away team whether they are Accrington, Chesterfield or Man U, but CW is not alone in his thinking.

[JoeyBeauchamp]

YF Dan, and several others, I have never seen such gratuitous negativity towards a manager. CW was rightly criticised last season for his loan policies, formation and player choices, and was effectively given another year with two conditions - use youngsters more and get us promoted. In the face of severe injury problems, he hasn't delved into the loan market, but used our development squad - even when it is pretty obvious that some of them (Marsh, COD) are not ready, and still managed to maintain momentum.

We sit second in the league after nine games and I for one would give the manager enormous credit for this. He has got people like Deane Smalley, Michael Raynes and Asa Hall (relatively) playing well, spotted the ability of Danny Rose when most of us were sceptical of bringing him back and had Beano playing through his injury last week. If we go on a run like last season and are lower mid-table at the turn of the year then I will be among the critics, but credit where credit is due.

[SWA]

good post that ^^^^^^^

[Brahma Bull]

YF Dan, and several others, I have never seen such gratuitous negativity towards a manager. CW was rightly criticised last season for his loan policies, formation and player choices, and was effectively given another year with two conditions - use youngsters more and get us promoted. In the face of a severe injury problem, s he hasn't delved into the loan market, but used out development squad - even when it is pretty obvious that some of them (Marsh, COD) are not ready, and still managed to maintain momentum.

We sit second in the league after nine games and I for one would give the manager enormous credit for this. He has got people like Deane Smalley, Michael Raynes and Asa Hall (relatively) playing well, spotted the ability of Danny Rose when most of us were sceptical of bringing him back and had Beano playing through his injury last week. If we go on a run like last season and are lower mid-table at the turn of the year then I will be among the critics, but credit where credit is due.

Chris has done very well this season and whilst there are sections of fans prepared only to give the plaudits to the players and not the first-team management, it is quite clear Wilder deserves as much, if not more, praise than he is being awarded. He has introduced the youngsters, all of which have participated this season (Ruffells, O'Dowda, Williams, Marsh, Shama and Max). It is clear though he hasn't embraced it as much as he should have, evidenced by his comments after the last few home games where either the bench is too inexperienced to be risked (Rochdale) or I will be asking the chairman to bring in a loan player to cover the depleted squad (Chesterfield).

So equal praise is deserving of the Board. The board who in the face of opposition kept Wilder and gave him a new contract in lieu of the rolling contract that previous board members had handed out. The board who have a clear plan on youth development and are trying to see it integrated. The board who almost certainly refused a loan request in the past few weeks from the manager (by the way if I were the manager I'd be asking the very same question of Lenagan about loan players - it is his job to do that).

Agree with your comments about Raynes, Smalley and Hall. Wilder deserves huge credit for picking up Danny Rose, Tom Newey and Kitson. Lenagan and Wilder have come up trumps in bringing in Mullins for a fee; when other sections of supporters claim the budget has been slashed - which clearly it has not.

Lots of positives at the moment. Very few negatives and well done to everyone who works at the club.

[Brahma Bull]

Further praise can be awarded to the New Commercial Team who are making decent strides in driving up the commercial revenue and who were tasked initially to develop and imlpement new matchday experiences for a cross-section of our fans. Still work in progress.

Some of the content on Yellow Player is exceptional, the Preview Shows are a great watch with the humour CW and MB adds. It's like watching the Two Ronnies sometimes. The coverage of the Hall of Fame boards, the names of every Oxford United player to ever wear the shirt and the Team Wall in the SSL where kids can be pictured in the team shot, are all productive.

Even directors phoning up lapsed season ticket holders is positive.

[Dr Bob]

I, for one, am very happy with what CW has been doing this season, regardless of whether or not it is under pressure from above. The problem for me is simply that CW has previous. He is known to play people out of position, to (seemingly) pay more attention on occasions to the opposition than to us and our game-plan, to drop players without any obvious (to us fans) reasons. That is why I am not (yet) getting carried away with an over-abundance of enthusiam and positivity, despite our start to the season. Two home games where we win and play decently and who-knows?

[Out of the gloom]

Hear, hear Brahma Bull!

Even the negatives are redeemable. There will be other opportunities for Development Squad youngsters throughout the season. More contributions from Williams like Hartlepool, and less unused substitute 'appearances', will make his loan signing that more palatable than the alternatives.

Wilder had a very good summer with permanent signings, retentions and releases; Mullins for Duberry, Rose for Leven and keeping Smalley all improvements.

The pitch has been relayed (though the egg chasers are still here) and other changes around the stadium are welcome, if rather loud. Overall the impression is a club on and off the field with a clear plan. This is a credit to all at the club, from Lenagan down.

That said, there are always things to do better. To be cliché nothing has yet been achieved. Three points on Saturday and an increased home attendance will be another step forward.

[YF Dan]

[quote][/quote]YF Dan, and several others, I have never seen such gratuitous negativity towards a manager.

Really? Obviously you have never heard a radox phone-in or read other forums.

I think I've come up with a perfectly balanced view here.

Yes, I'm very happy with being second in the league. Fair play to everyone involved, including Chris Wilder, but especially our chairman, who I think has done a lot to help CW learn from some of his mistakes of previous seasons.

But, before we get too wrapped up in our own self-satisfied glory, it is worth pointing out that none of the teams we've beaten are anywhere near the top half of the table. In fact, we've played very few clubs who are currently in the top half. We've played two decent teams (Chesterfield and Charlton) and been dicked in both games.

We still haven't cracked playing at home either, a high tempo attacking game something that still eludes as a club, especially at the Kassam.

I totally hope our good run of results continues, and I really don't want to see CW sacked at any point (if he is ever, it will be because we are doing badly, and no-one wants that). But I'm going to get wildly over-excited either or claim he's some kind of football messiah either. Like anyone who is effectively on their last chance, realistic appraisal is required of their performance.

It's been a good start to the season, but Pompey aside, without any wins that we wouldn't have realistically expected if we were to mount a serious promotion push, which had to be our bare minimum.

So far, 7/10. Good, but could still do better.

[SWA]

Cheltenham were a decent team