Something did change in the second half – I thought we got poorer. Oxford are a decent side, but the truth is they didn’t have to be brilliant last night. We struggled to get out of the dressing room in the second half, and as the fog rolled in, our only hope was for it to get so thick we couldn’t carry on.
For a short period, the fog did make it difficult to see what was happening on the far touchline. It invoked memories of Oldham in the cup, and briefly, I took a trip down memory lane. The ethereal atmosphere reminded me so much of that evening, but the football did not.
We huffed and puffed but got nowhere. I can’t recall many decent opportunities for us or for them. Their goal was a horror show fit for Halloween, a cross pushed into his own net by Jensen. Around me, there was a feeling that he might be in credit given some of the stops he’s made, and it wasn’t like it cost us the game at all. If that hadn’t gone in, we were heading for a 1-0 defeat, nothing more, nothing less. When Jensen misjudged the ball (let’s blame the fog), it merely rubber-stamped an outcome that had been pretty much set in stone five minutes after the restart.
I don’t know what went wrong last night or why we looked so stodgy in the second half. It was as if the fog were treacle, and Oxford could run through it whilst we couldn’t. We changed the entire front line, but it made little difference. We added the Haks threat from throw-ins, but Smith and Makama didn’t really impress themselves on the game. Instead, we played errant passes, almost putting ourselves in trouble on more than one occasion. Paudie looked miles off the pace by the end, and as mentioned in the first half, Erhahon’s game didn’t get any better either. There wasn’t a standout performer in the team, not for the right reasons.
I did have to laugh at one point. A chap who sits in front of me, Mr Happy, I call him, was spitting with rage at a misplaced Paudie pass. I don’t think he likes our captain at all, and he had some reason for that last night. However, Paudie misplaced a pass, and Mr Happy almost exploded. “You couldn’t captain a ship,” he cried, anger emanating from every word, eyes bulging with rage. Considering you need a bachelor’s degree to work as a cruise ship captain and education from specialised academies providing marine certifications and credentials, I think Mr Happy was right. It’s the oddest heckle I’ve ever heard, a bit like shouting to a defender, “You couldn’t defend Boris Johnson’s Covid strategy,” or shouting at a keeper, “You couldn’t keep marine fish in a bucket.” No, you couldn’t. Nobody could.
I had to chuckle when the Man of the Match was announced as well (I did find some things to chuckle at it seems). There was genuine shock around the stadium when Jack Burroughs’ name was mentioned, but I was struggling to think of anyone else. Adam Jackson was as steady and reliable as ever, but I’m not sure anyone else covered themselves in glory. It didn’t stop a joker asking me whether the match sponsor was Mr and Mrs Burroughs.
That said, we kept trying, even when it wasn’t working. I never felt it was an application issue or an attitude problem. I don’t think we were set up negatively, and our xG was, remarkably, still higher than against Burton, Carlisle, and Bolton. We also restricted Oxford to a lower xG rating than Charlton last week. Sadly, we just looked a bit tired, and we came up against a better team whom we gifted a couple of goals. It’s that simple. Do I think there’s a fundamental issue within the squad because of one defeat in four? Nope. Do I think last night’s result makes any difference to the direction we’re hoping to go in? No.
You see, that’s the problem with analysis – there always has to be something to glean from the game. We always try to see where the game fits into the bigger picture, what it tells us, and what golden nuggets of insight we can offer that prove not only what the game was all about but how great we are at spotting it. Last night, there wasn’t anything we could take away that made me think any differently from before kick-off.
I just think it was a bad day at the office, and we came up against a good who was better than we were. It’s as simple as that, it happens in football, and all you can do is dust yourselves down and crack on.
Right, I’m off to look up how much a new clutch is and to scrape the remnants of dog mess from the soles of my shoe. Hopefully, your late afternoon is going to be better than that.