Oxford United are a team that I know very little about. The only recent memory I have of them was playing them in a preseason friendly before the start of last season and losing 2-0. In the same way than the preseason performances this season told us that the Will Still appointment might not go particularly well, that Oxford performance told us was the forerunner of the Premier League campaign being a 12 point murder of a campaign.

The Kassam Stadium is weird, with one end being open and a car park. The two corners connected the other three stands are wide open as well. No wonder they are looking to move ground again, a relatively mere 24 years since they left the Manor ground, their traditional home, and started playing at what was a purpose built stadium.

They got promoted into the Championship at the same time as our dearest neighbours from down the road and successfully fought a relegation battle last year, only to find themselves and a similar battle this year. Up until a couple of days ago we thought we were coming up against a Gary Rowett team and he’s a manager well known for pragmatic football and as a result, I was expecting some sort of park the bus performance from Oxford this afternoon. However, one win the last ten meant that Rowett was sacked a couple of days ago so there is an element of the unknown about how they are going to perform this afternoon under interim maanager Craig Short.

Saints have to win this game. If you are serious about challenging near the top of the league, then you have to be team to the relegation zone whilst we can expect Oxford to be quite spirited, they are down near the bottom for a reason and the reason is that they are not very good. A point on the road is not a good result today and a defeat would certainly begin to change peoples perception of everything around the club.

Meanwhile, Saints have been charged along with Coventry with failing to control their players after the game on Saturday. Sky Blues fans are still giving it the big one about the whole incident and I just can’t be fucking bothered with idiotic fan bases doing mental gymnastics to try and justify the unjustifiable. We’ve had Norwich fans trying to justify their striker punching the ball in the net for a winning goal last week and now we’ve got Coventry fans justifying their manager starting the whole melee at the final whistle. Absolute arseholes. Coventry fans seem to have brought into the narrative that it was our fans fault for saying hurty words and it was also the fault of our players after the final whistle somehow. They appear totally blind to Frank Lampard‘s role in the whole thing, which was basically to start the whole thing off. Don’t you just love it when they accuse our entire fan base of being rattled when their manager has already admitted that he got rattled by something said in the crowd. Pathetic. Personally, I don’t have too much of a problem with Lampard’s reaction but don’t pretend that didn’t start the whole thing off.

To Oxford and the team news is that we have our first choice 11 out there with Fellows in from the start and Captain Jack returning in place of Josh Q.

Away we go and a positive start with right back Spencer trashing Scienza and getting booked after 8 minutes. A couple of minutes later and some decent play sees Flynn Downes pick out a good ball forward to Azaz and he knocks it through to Scienza who bursts in between two defenders and gets sandwiched to the floor by the penalty spot. Nothing doing from the referee, probably because it’s the same guy that’s already got booked and if he gives it, then he has to show him a second yellow. Seen them given, seen them ignored.

Scienza is getting booted all over the place as usual, and Harris is the perpetrator of this time out on the left-wing. In it comes, headed away and Downes forgets for a second that he’s really not gonna ping the ball in the top corner from 25 yards and smashes it into the car park, hopefully taking out some indicators on a BMW because they don’t use them anyway.

Scienza finds himself out on the right wing plays a short ball to Manning and goes for the return and in clean through on the angle and he really should shoot but decides to play across and there is no one there and Oxford clear it again as far as Azaz and he does exactly the same as Downes earlier and launches it into the car park.

Oxford haven’t done anything much so far, but then Fellows gives the ball away in midfield and a simple ball through sees them win a corner off of Wood. In it comes from Goodrhem and Saints belt it away but it’s sent back into the mix again to the back post where Stephens wandering about not paying attention to anything, certainly not Helik behind him and the Oxford man gets up to nod it across, THB heads out to the edge of the box and Goodrhem absolutely smashes it from 20 yards past Baz at the near post. Fuck sake. Totally against run of play and all because we got careless and then didn’t bother with the basics of defending.

We react well and Fellows gets carted over by Mills with a challenge that really should bring a yellow card but this referee is fucking useless. Scienza puts it into the mixer and there is THB rising unopposed by the penalty spot to nod powerfully past the keeper to level things up. Now can we play properly please.

Rather than taking over the game which we should do at this point, Captain Jack thinks he’s Steven Gerrard for some reason and can hit along the diagonal which doesn’t even get halfway there Oxford intercept and it gets played back over the top of him and he is unable to do anything about Placheta finding de Keersmaecker, whose cross lands on top of the goal . It’s just fucking sloppy and Oxford are clearly set up to try and cause us problems every time we give the ball away cheaply and hit us on the transition.

When Saints connect up the passing, they are absolutely pissing through Oxford and Downes again finds Azaz in space between the lines and he slides it through to Scienza coming in from the left and as he is challenged he gets his shot away and it smacks against the outside of the post and away to the left side, where Manning picks it up and crosses it back in but though Scienza heads goalwards, it is never troubling the keeper.

Half time and that’s been pretty ropey to be honest. We have been too passive defensively on the few occasions that we have to do anything and we killed a lot of our own attacks by not passing the ball forward quickly enough or by being sloppy and passing it behind the player. We’ve had something like 80% possession and managed to have one shot on target and that was the goal so I don’t think their goalkeeper has actually touched the ball in anger. Not good enough but nothing a couple of goals in the second half won’t fix.

However, the second half starts poorly with Placheta trying a volley from 20 yards, which Baz fairly comfortably pushes away. The smae player then tries another ridiculously optimitic effort which field wide. I wonder if he always does this or whether they are just shooting on sight having looked at our goalkeeper statistics? Nothing much happens for the next 10 minutes and then Tonda takes off two of our best players with Downes and Scienza coming off for Romeu and Robinson. Leo has not been at his best today, but he is considerably better than the other two forwards and Downes has probably been our best player despite the yellow card that he picked up because the referee was a dick earlier on.

Saintys carve out a good chance as we work out well to the right and Fellows gets a run on the fiull back and gets a good cross in to the back post where Jander is coming in but it’s a disappointing effort as he doesn;t get over it and into the crowd at the non-car park end it goes. Another chance as Fellows set off on a run in field, drawing defenders with him before finding Armstrong, waives his anonimity for a second and cuts in and scuffs his shot but it hits a defender and goes off for a corner.

Oxford are still a threat though and there’s a huge alarm when pathetic defending by a combination of Fellows, Azaz and THB allows Mills to bundle past on the left and get to the line before crossing it along the 6 yard line for no one. It’s still mainly Saints creating chances though and some neat short passing sends Robinson skipping through from the edge of the box and he comes in from the right and hits it at the new post, but the keeper gets done well to push it wide.

With that, Fellows is replaced with Wee man and Arma chests the ball down to Robinson he finds Azaz on the left and his chip into the box is nodded back by Wee Man and Armstrong has a free volley from 6 yards and he smashes it straight of the goalkeeper who keeps it out? Great save but a bad miss.

Azaz bundles past a player and has his effort pushed away and having just come alive in the last five minutes, Azaz is then replaced with Cameron Archer for no readily apparent fucking reason and during the reshuffle, Oxford managed to break up the middle of the pitch and Oxford sub Dembele takes too long to get his shot away and runs into THB. The referee doesn’t buy Dembele’s very obvious desire for a penalty, born out of the fact he’s totally fucked it up.

Archer sees his shot deflected away for a corner. It’s cleared and Manning swings the ball into the mixer and it’s headed away and we appear to have overcommitted here with seven players in front of the ball. Mills runs through the centre of the pitch and bundles past Romeu, before playing a 1-2 with Lankshere and he’s clean through from an angle and he very simply hits it with his left foot past the fucking Holo-Baz and into the middle of the goal. Fuck off.

There are a few minutes of extra time to go but we’re done and that’s your lot. Well, that was fucking dog shit, more or less from start to finish. The Tonda Express has been well and truly derailed and the honeymoon period is well and truly over. Pathetic. There was so much about their performance that was absolutely shite that’s it’s hard to know where to begin. I know – goalkeeper.

Baz again is like a fucking hologram in goal. Look at that winning goal. It basically goes into the middle of the goal. How the fuck has he not even got a touch on that. If the forward had pinged it into the net off the far post then that’s one thing but it’s the forward has come in from the left and finished it with his left foot. It’s not as if he had opened his body out and use his right foot to curl it around the goalkeeper. None of that – he’s just drilled it with his left foot along the ground into the middle of the fucking goal. How does the goalkeeper make himself so small for virtually every shot that comes his way. Even on the first goal, he’s not the most culpable with Captain Jack’s non-participation and THB”s heading it into the danger zone playing major parts in conceding that goal, but though it’s a hell of a strike, it’s still gone in at the near post through some chocolate wristed attempt to keep it out. He has been statistically the worst goalkeeper in whatever division we have been in for all three seasons that he’s been the regular goalkeeper. It isn’t coincidence anymore and it isn’t bad luck anymore. He just isn’t good enough – he doesn’t save shots, he doesn’t command even the 6 yard box and it’s beyond the fucking ridiculous in my opinion. Please don’t try and argue that shit about ‘being good with his feet’ – don’t even go there, that is literally all he has. It’s nearly January – get someone else in and before that, put McCarthy in goal.

What can I say about Jack Stephens. Captain Jack with his three year contract. He’s just a fucking observer in any game that he plays these days. There’s no leadership by example, there’s no taking responsibility, there’s just a defender who is dolloping around out there watching the game go by. Look at him on that first goal – the cross comes in from the opposite wing and he is standing there ball watching as fucking usual, and the guy behind him heads it back into the mixer and that’s where all the problems start. On top of that there’s all the sloppy passing usually behind whatever player he’s aiming at. We set up to play out from the back and you’ve got Jack butchering any attack down the left. What the fuck Ronnie Edwards has to do to get a game ahead of Stephens or Josh Q is absolutely beyond me but then, we shouldn’t be playing with three central defenders anyway.

I’m guessing the only reason we are doing it is because we don’t have a fit right back at the moment, but for fuck‘s sake, I’d rather play Ronnie at right back than persevere with this three at the back shite. The only reason I could see that we’ve persevered with this formation is because we have managed to get Tom Fellows running towards the opposition goal but if that doesn’t work then the formation absolutely kills us because the two in midfield just get bypassed too easily as we end up with a flat five, which includes players who either can’t defend or can’t be bothered to defend and the three central defenders who end up playing so deep, probably in part because they don’t trust the clown with the gloves. Like with the goal we conceded against Coventry last week, our defenders drop deep and are in the penalty area and think that’s enough – no it isn’t – you have to pick players up and you have to win your battles and at the very least, not give them a free ride to do whatever they like.

When even opposition as limited as Oxford are finding huge holes all over the park, you are in trouble. As I said, the midfield gets overrun on the break and especially today when Flynn Downes goes off and Oriol Romeu comes on. It’s almost heartbreaking to see a club legend playing like that but let’s be honest, in every game he’s played so far he’s been absolutely shit. Miles off the pace and not adding very much at all. Like against Millwall, he could have stopped today’s winner at source but once again, he missed a tackle in midfield because he was completely off balance. He was brought in to add the nous and experience to see games out but all he’s contributed at the end of games so far is to miss tackles that have ultimately lead to us chucking points away. Hopefully this is a case of him taking longer to get match fit from a standing start because of his age but it’s not looking good.

The little purple patch that Adam Armstrong has had is obviously now completely over. The dropping deeper to pick the ball up and link attacks was virtually non-existent today and he spent the whole game not doing much but he did manage to miss the best chance we had to win it by smashing one at point blank range straight at the goalkeeper. Finn Azaz had a second game in a row where he was wearing concrete boots, with the odd perceptive pass mixed up with about ten where the radar was so far off that you couldn’t even fucking see who he was aiming at. However, he was starting to get things right when he was bizarrely dragged off. Leo Scienza was well off it today as well with the wrong decisions being made all over the place and the passing just not being up to his usual standard. He still managed to be our best attacker by a mile, hitting the post and having half-decent penalty claim turned down. We can’t just rely on him to do something brilliant every game and other players have to step up. To be fair, Jay Robinson had a decent impact off the bench but other than that the subs were all fucking useless as per usual. Wee Man at least tried to have a positive impact on attack but he is simply not good enough.

Tonda has to actually do something now. The fact is that he has kept the same formation that Will Still had and he tweaked it slightly to make it give us an attacking threat. However, for whatever reason it’s not working now, possibly because teams have sussed it out but basically we are a one trick pony and if it doesn’t work and we don’t blow teams away in the first half, then we seem to have no answers of how to pick up the performance of the second half and win games any other way, which is maybe down to the inflexibility of the tactics or of course it’s mainly down to the shit players that we bring off the bench. Tonda has to actually do something different now and this is the first real test.

One of the questions we had when he first got the job was about his next to zero experience as a manager and how he would deal with a few games when things don’t go to plan. We are about to find out because this is where we are right now. That was shit today and he was shit as well to be perfectly honest. No tactical switch and what the fuck was that with Scienza and Manning. The guy marking Scienza gets booked after eight minutes and at that point we should’ve absolutely flooded Leo with the ball and told him to run at him every single time, but instead of that, we switch Scienza infield and leave room for wing wonder Manning to get forward and constantly hit the first man with every cross. What the fuck were we doing? Aim for the weakness and ruthlessly try and get the guy sent off. If he doesn;t get sent off he isn;t going to be putting many tackles in.

Then there’s a substitutions. Tonda has made a point of giving that steely stare to journalists who suggest that he looks at the next game rather than the one in front of him and he could certainly be accused of being guilty of that today. Last week he defended sending Baz up for a corner at 1-1 as him trying anything to win the game, this week the first two players to come off were probably our two best players in Downes and Scienza on 56 minutes and we had no real control of the game after that with Romeu having issues as highlighted earlier.

Defensively we are massively weak. The first thing is obvious is that the opposition are trying shots from absolutely anywhere because they know our goalkeeper is shit. They also know that we leave massive space behind the full backs so get their wingers really high really early on the transition, to take advantage of that and when they haven’t got the ball, they drop their wingers back to make a five in midfield which allows the three central midfield players to crowd out the two that we have in there.

Eckert has to start earning his money because now the new manager bounce and the honeymoon period is well and truly over, just sending the same players out in the same formation is clearly not going to get the desired results. At the start I said that defeat today would change perceptions somewhat and I don’t think it’s going to take much for things to turn nasty again with Sport Republic being in the firing line. The next few games and a looming trip to Fratton Park could make things fun again.

Oxford won the game in fair play to them but it was two bad teams out there and whereas their keeper saved Armstrong‘s effort, our keeper did absolutely fuck all on their winner. Swap the goalkeepers over and we probably win but in all honesty that would’ve papered over the cracks for what was a poor performance. Tonda has to come up with some answers now and it would be a good idea if he could do it at Birmingham on Monday.

Up the fucking derailed Tonda Train