Rage Online

SmileyMan wrote:

GodalmingYellow wrote:But why pick on the top scorer for that comment? How very very bizarre.

Because our 'top scorer' having 11 goals in 45 appearances is a massive part of the problem this season. Take Saturday for instance - both a chance to go ahead, and another to snatch a point at the death fell to his feet, and both went straight into the keepers' chest. How long can a dip in form last before it just becomes 'not good enough?'

But even so, he is still top scorer, and there are very clearly others who deserve your tongue lashing well before Beano, like the aforementioned Smalley and Kitson. Why go for Beano when there are others more deserving? Strange.

Myles, apoligies I didn't spot your reference to home matches, I agree with you, we have not been good enough at home. My view on his overall record this season stands though, perhaps we needed Atkins in charge at home and Wilder away (what a combination!).

Jimski makes the point well, given we were having the best season we'd had for many years, steps should have been taken to disucss a new contract with Wilder, the silence from IL was somewhat deafening so it was clear to Wilder he was not wanted, either by the chairman or a signifianct number of the fan base. This talk of Wilder not being professional, honourable and trustworthy is bollocks, he was fulfilling his brief of getting us into the play offs yet a contract wasn;t forthcoming so he did the thing many of us would have done and gone where he was wanted and had long term security. IL had plenty of warning this was coming given Wilder was being very honest about the contact he was having from other clubs and was seeking permission to speak to clubs. He didn't bottle it, IL bottled it by not opening talks with him and then not having the bottle to decide Lewis wasn't the answer.

I would rate Wilder as a good manager, better than ok, his win ratio is up there with the best managers we have ever had and he took us from the bottom half of one league to the top 5 (when he left) of the league above. That is improvement and far better than nearly all the managers in our history have achieved. Yes the football wasn't great at times (at times it was fantastic) and there are number of mitagatory factors to this, rugby on the pitch injuries to key players but given the time again I would rather he was still in charge of this football club.

And as for the Beano debate, it's one of the few things GY and I acutally agree on!

As YFD says, this is going round in circles, so I'm not going to respond to Ty's last post as I've already done so far too much already. The points have already been dealt with, and repeating them doesn't change them.

Time for others to chip in and try to move things along.

I largely agree with YFDs last post, which does make several very important points about the problems under Wilder and the knock on effect to now.

GodalmingYellow wrote:But even so, he is still top scorer, and there are very clearly others who deserve your tongue lashing well before Beano, like the aforementioned Smalley and Kitson. Why go for Beano when there are others more deserving? Strange.

So he's immune from criticism because there are worse performing players? That's even stranger.

I don't think anyone can accuse me of being negative about the club or players - I'm usually one of the most optimistic people on here. But a lot of our dropped points this season came down to missed chances, and a lot of those chances came to Constable. Obviously there's a bias in that data where as the main team striker he's the primary target for crosses and through-balls, but maybe he's just lost a little bit of magic because he seems to pick out the middle of the keeper's jersey every single time.

As for Smalley, I'm as baffled as everyone else as to why he keeps being picked, and just after the Kitson and Connelly double substitution against Newport was easily the best and most beautiful five minutes of football I've seen us play in years, so clearly DK still has it somewhere, he's just old.

Here's another thing that bothers me at the moment: Looking back at the last, say, five years, are there any players that have joined Oxford, improved under the management / coaching here, and then gone on to - or look likely to - succeed further up the ladder? Because I can't think of one (I was maybe going to say Jake Wright, but after his return from injury I'm not so sure). We make reasonable signings, all of whom come in with a reasonable reputation / record, they look decent for a few months and then somehow they lose form, then their place in the team, and ultimately get free transferred out. Either that or they sustain a long-term injury and never return to the same level of ability. It's frightening how many injury crises we've had in the last few years too (and the sports science thingy doesn't seem to have solved that this season).

How accountable is our coaching team for this? Should they be or do you think they deserve their ring-fenced status at the club? Because, however much ML and AM are stalwart servants of the club, I fear that I don't see any positives from their work.

Discuss?

Again, this has frequently been discussed, usually with the spin that we add little or no value to players.

It seems to me that - in the absence of statistical evidence - we probably do much the same as most L2 teams. Raynes is a better player than when he arrived. Smalley is dire at the moment, and has been for most of his time here. He had one good season at Chesterfield, but - irc - Oldham fans were hardly gutted to see him leave. Many players seem to find their level, and in the modern game where everything is so finely graded, migrate around clubs in the same league, or occasionally one up or one down: Zebrowski, Rose, Worley, Chapman, Deering, Pittman, Tonkin, Midson, Asa Hall to name but a few.

What we have not done is to find a youngster who is going to be a really good player, and benefit both from his skill, and a financial bonus when he moves on. Achieving this is increasingly hard because of the exhaustive scouting at the ages of 6+ conducted by the big clubs, but other lower league clubs sometimes seem to manage it. Clearly it's something Lenegan is setting a lot of store by.

Injuries seem to be a more distinctively OUFC problem, although stats would again be useful, if there is any way of measuring impact. It's not just the number of injuries, it's their tactical importance: for us over recent seasons, Leven, Whing, Duberry, Meades, Craddock / Pittman, Capaldi seem to have picked up long-term injuries which have had a serious impact on the side. Of course, this may reflect poor recruitment, both in the sense that some should never have been given a contract in the first place, and that we did not have good enough cover.

SmileyMan wrote:

GodalmingYellow wrote:But even so, he is still top scorer, and there are very clearly others who deserve your tongue lashing well before Beano, like the aforementioned Smalley and Kitson. Why go for Beano when there are others more deserving? Strange.

So he's immune from criticism because there are worse performing players? That's even stranger.

I don't think anyone can accuse me of being negative about the club or players - I'm usually one of the most optimistic people on here. But a lot of our dropped points this season came down to missed chances, and a lot of those chances came to Constable. Obviously there's a bias in that data where as the main team striker he's the primary target for crosses and through-balls, but maybe he's just lost a little bit of magic because he seems to pick out the middle of the keeper's jersey every single time.

As for Smalley, I'm as baffled as everyone else as to why he keeps being picked, and just after the Kitson and Connelly double substitution against Newport was easily the best and most beautiful five minutes of football I've seen us play in years, so clearly DK still has it somewhere, he's just old.

Of course Beano is not above criticism, and I've also said his season has been poor, but to pick him out for special criticism when others have failed far more obviously, is the strange bit.

Shoobedoo wrote:Here's another thing that bothers me at the moment: Looking back at the last, say, five years, are there any players that have joined Oxford, improved under the management / coaching here, and then gone on to - or look likely to - succeed further up the ladder? Because I can't think of one (I was maybe going to say Jake Wright, but after his return from injury I'm not so sure). We make reasonable signings, all of whom come in with a reasonable reputation / record, they look decent for a few months and then somehow they lose form, then their place in the team, and ultimately get free transferred out. Either that or they sustain a long-term injury and never return to the same level of ability. It's frightening how many injury crises we've had in the last few years too (and the sports science thingy doesn't seem to have solved that this season).

How accountable is our coaching team for this? Should they be or do you think they deserve their ring-fenced status at the club? Because, however much ML and AM are stalwart servants of the club, I fear that I don't see any positives from their work.

Discuss?

Difficult to argue a case, as coaches don't really have a direct line of responsibility for the results, because managers can replace them if they are deemed not good enough.

I would say though, and this has been discussed many times before, that we only seem to employ defensive and defensive midfielder type coaches, which can't be good for creative play or finishing.

Waddock is another in that mould, as was Wilder, ML, AM and Patterson.

GodalmingYellow wrote:Of course Beano is not above criticism, and I've also said his season has been poor, but to pick him out for special criticism when others have failed far more obviously, is the strange bit.

I haven't "picked him out for special criticism," I've just highlighted a problem with his game that has undoubtedly cost us many points this season. That's just plain "criticism."

Instead of the ad hominem stuff (repeatedly calling me 'strange' doesn't really achieve much), why don't you produce some evidence refuting my argument, or come up with a convincing reason why he should be spared criticism because other players are also underperforming?

A shame that an otherwise interesting debate on where our season is going has descended into another discussion about Wilder. I wasn't planning to add to it, but I couldn't let this pass:

ty cobb wrote:This talk of Wilder not being professional... is bollocks

Really? I mean really? The guy stormed off in a huff after the Torquay game, didn't speak to the Chairman to resign properly, didn't do his post-match interviews, allowed us all to speculate about WTF had gone on - then released a statement 24 hours later saying he hadn't resigned (despite telling the players he had and then allowing a void to develop into which speculation naturally followed) only to then leave us 24 hours after that.

Whatever other attributes you may want to claim for him - and I think his record was a decent one overall - professionalism is not one of them, chum.

SmileyMan wrote:

GodalmingYellow wrote:Of course Beano is not above criticism, and I've also said his season has been poor, but to pick him out for special criticism when others have failed far more obviously, is the strange bit.

I haven't "picked him out for special criticism," I've just highlighted a problem with his game that has undoubtedly cost us many points this season. That's just plain "criticism."

Instead of the ad hominem stuff (repeatedly calling me 'strange' doesn't really achieve much), why don't you produce some evidence refuting my argument, or come up with a convincing reason why he should be spared criticism because other players are also underperforming?

I'm not calling you strange SM. I'm not remotely interested in personal abuse. It was just the point you were making struck me as being strange. I apologise if you feel offended by that.

To get to the point, you have in my view picked out Beano for special criticism, because he was the first (maybe even only) person you've criticised in the team on this thread and in this discussion. de facto special criticism. Had it been a balanced point all the strikers would have been criticised, with Smalley and Kitson coming in for harsher tone that Beano. But no, it was only Beano and I couldn't understand why, and you haven't really given much of an explanation why.

I don't need to come up with evidence that Beano should be spared criticism, because as I've already said, I don't think he should be, because he's had a poor season. There just needs to be balance when criticism is meted out and others need to be criticised first and more heavily.

OK here's some stats based on minutes on the pitch:
Both Beano and Smalley are scoring at the same rate of almost exactly 1 goal every 3 games.
Kitson is scoring at a rate of 1 goal every 8 games, which is shockingly poor.
Connelly is scoring at a rate of more than 1 goal every 1.6 games, which is really quite impressive.
From open play Smalley has scored just 6 goals in the league at a rate of nearly 1 goal every 4 games, Beano has scored 9 at a rate of 1 goal every 3 games.

I would say that whilst it isn't top rate scoring, 1 goal every 3 games is by no means horrific. It equates to 15 goals a season if played full time, which is the rate of a slightly above average striker in my view.

And it isn't as if Kitson can complain about lack of game time. Despite his couple of small injuries and his largely self-imposed disciplinary record, he has still played an equivalent of 24 full matches this season. Given that he was Wilder's banner headline signing of last summer, and despite his tricks and flicks, Kitson has ended up being a big waste of cash in my view. I am sure we could have had two decent forwards in place of him this year for the same money and probably quite a few more goals.

Beano has clearly been our best striker whilst having a poor season.

Beano has clearly been our best striker whilst having a poor season.

Amen - he has been frustrating this year and is hardly deadly but he looked quite sharp against D&R: he has a nice way of getting the ball and turning sharply to shoot or cross that can be effective.

Hard to argue against that goal return from Kitson. However, he still lies top of the 'assists' list. Also, the fact that he wasn't scoring earlier in the season wasn't a problem when others were - to the extent that for a while OUFC were amongst the top scorers in the division. I can't help feeling that against Southend, Kitson would have provided an outlet that was clearly lacking and we might have retained possession better. Clearly, the wage (how much relative to other players?) is an issue, but I wonder if Waddock can get better value for money out of him and instruct him to cut out the dissent. In my view Kitson still has a lot to offer through unsettling the opposing centre-halves, dropping deep, holding the ball up, bringing others into play with Connolly (who certainly can finish) being allowed to play off the last defender and Williams supporting from out wide. Left wing has been a big problem area with Rigg seemingly being out of form for most of this season and Smalley clearly not the answer. Ruffels is more effective in the centre, so I'd favour giving O'Dowda some more game time between now and the end of the season in his natural position.