| Article on ITFC - D3D4 football 15:31 - Mar 9 with 2388 views | oxfordunitedfan86 |
Hi all,
Full disclosure before I start: I'm an Oxford United fan in peace.
I'm writing an article for d3d4football.com on Ipswich's season. You're a big club and started the season very well but results have been worse than hoped since November. I would appreciate any of your views on why you've had this downturn in form - they would be really helpful for the article!
Cheers,
Will |  | | |  |
| Article on ITFC - D3D4 football on 15:36 - Mar 9 with 2355 views | WarkTheWarkITFC |
Effectively, we started the season as a team that had enthusiasm and belief we could win games, having been pathetic last year and gone down with no fight.
This desire and hunger combined with many clubs seemingly being fearful of us and happy to take a point allowed us to dominate teams and nick wins in tight games and all looked pretty rosy.
However, we lost to Accrington on TV when they completely bullied us and wrote a blueprint for all other teams against us. This coincided with Lambert's ridiculous decision to rotate the squad, sometimes dropping 5 or 6 players after a win the previous week.
Combined with a lack of game plan, identity and with other teams no longer fearing us, we went on a run of 1 win in 15, before a couple of back to back wins was followed by another losing run.
It's clear that our start to the season was an anomaly and that we have a squad full of players who are probably up to it, but don't really look like they are playing for a dead man walking.
You can't blame them when they have played brilliantly and been dropped or been shocking and kept their places. Lambert seems to have got pretty much everything wrong on the squad management side, perfectly highlighted by Fleetwood last week where several players came in from the cold, started, did no worse than anyone else and then weren't in the 18 for the next match.
We have a terrible manager, players who aren't playing for him and a clueless owner.
Hopefully Karl Robinson sorts it all out. | |
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| Article on ITFC - D3D4 football on 15:57 - Mar 9 with 2254 views | GeoffSentence |
| Article on ITFC - D3D4 football on 15:36 - Mar 9 by WarkTheWarkITFC |
Effectively, we started the season as a team that had enthusiasm and belief we could win games, having been pathetic last year and gone down with no fight.
This desire and hunger combined with many clubs seemingly being fearful of us and happy to take a point allowed us to dominate teams and nick wins in tight games and all looked pretty rosy.
However, we lost to Accrington on TV when they completely bullied us and wrote a blueprint for all other teams against us. This coincided with Lambert's ridiculous decision to rotate the squad, sometimes dropping 5 or 6 players after a win the previous week.
Combined with a lack of game plan, identity and with other teams no longer fearing us, we went on a run of 1 win in 15, before a couple of back to back wins was followed by another losing run.
It's clear that our start to the season was an anomaly and that we have a squad full of players who are probably up to it, but don't really look like they are playing for a dead man walking.
You can't blame them when they have played brilliantly and been dropped or been shocking and kept their places. Lambert seems to have got pretty much everything wrong on the squad management side, perfectly highlighted by Fleetwood last week where several players came in from the cold, started, did no worse than anyone else and then weren't in the 18 for the next match.
We have a terrible manager, players who aren't playing for him and a clueless owner.
Hopefully Karl Robinson sorts it all out. |
Regarding rotation, the teams he put out in the first 32 games were all different from every team that he had put out before. And it wasn't just the team selection, he was tinkering with the formation too, players were playing alongside team mates they hadn't lined up with before in a formation they hadn't played in. |  |
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| Article on ITFC - D3D4 football on 15:58 - Mar 9 with 2249 views | Pecker |
A shocking manager who is way out of his depth.
Injuries to key players and not enough quality in squad to replace them.
A shocking manager who is way out of his depth.
Constant system changes.
A shocking manager who is way out of his depth.
Players thinking they were better than they actually are.
A shocking manager who is way out of his depth.
A Captain well past his best.
A shocking manager who is way out of his depth.
Not one quality striker on our books.
A shocking manager who is way out of his depth.
A vice captain who is past his best.
A shocking manager who is way out of his depth.
No quality RB in our squad.
A shocking manager who is way out of his depth.
No quality LB in our squad.
A shocking manager who is way out of his depth. |  | | |
| Article on ITFC - D3D4 football on 16:18 - Mar 9 with 2194 views | rickw |
When we were top earlier in the season we weren't playing brilliantly we were just being slightly more clinical than the opposition, now our strikers have lost confidence and the reverse is true.
We have changed system or approach nearly every game, unable to find a system that can work for us against most opponents.
Lambert doesn't seem like a good coach, our players still often play like they haven't met each other before |  |
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| Article on ITFC - D3D4 football on 16:43 - Mar 9 with 2085 views | norfsufblue |
| Article on ITFC - D3D4 football on 15:58 - Mar 9 by Pecker |
A shocking manager who is way out of his depth.
Injuries to key players and not enough quality in squad to replace them.
A shocking manager who is way out of his depth.
Constant system changes.
A shocking manager who is way out of his depth.
Players thinking they were better than they actually are.
A shocking manager who is way out of his depth.
A Captain well past his best.
A shocking manager who is way out of his depth.
Not one quality striker on our books.
A shocking manager who is way out of his depth.
A vice captain who is past his best.
A shocking manager who is way out of his depth.
No quality RB in our squad.
A shocking manager who is way out of his depth.
No quality LB in our squad.
A shocking manager who is way out of his depth. |
But what about the manager? |  | | |
| Article on ITFC - D3D4 football on 16:44 - Mar 9 with 2079 views | Mullet |
Lambert is a sh1t manager. |  |
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| Article on ITFC - D3D4 football on 16:53 - Mar 9 with 2038 views | Mullet |
On a serious note, I started listening to you guys in the summer to acclimatise to this league and found it really useful and interesting. I seem to remember one of you saying Gillingham had got a better keeper in than us in regards to Holy.
In the 2 games before being dropped again he let in a couple of suspect goals where getting down low was an issue. But he like the whole team has had little in terms of stability. Good form from the strikers forced Lambert into 442, he recruited badly and has had the squad lopsided all season, flitting between 3's and 4's throughout the thirds and never sure of his best team or system.
He has constantly talked down things once it started to go wrong, opted to take off international breaks even when the players called up weren't first teamers and has lost all sense of momentum or direction far too easily.
A lack of recruitment in January and injuries and suspensions have forced more changes on us, and muddied the waters further. In a nutshell we're a mess and performing way below where we should be on and off the field. | |
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| Article on ITFC - D3D4 football on 17:13 - Mar 9 with 1995 views | Chrisd |
3 factors for me:
1. An owner who sets the expectations from the very top at a low level, which means mediocrity runs right through the core of the club from top to bottom like a stick of rock. It just sets the tone.
2. A manager that talks a good game, but shows during matches that we still have no pattern of play, he lacks tactical nous and is unable to motivate the players to perform. There is just no consistency with team selection either!
3. The players have been hugely disappointing, just like last season, but they've shown their true colours that perhaps L1 is their level for a lot of the squad. We have a few good individuals, but collectively as a side we are a poor one, which lacks leaders and is devoid of the will and desire to win games.
Invoice is in the post Will! [Post edited 9 Mar 2020 19:13]
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| Article on ITFC - D3D4 football on 19:59 - Mar 9 with 1776 views | RegencyBlue |
We are not good enough, it’s as simple as that. Years of the better players in the squad being sold and replaced by poorer, cheaper, ones has finally caught up with us.
We started well but never looked convincing even when we were winning. I think we were sussed out by the other teams after the first few months and have never recovered. Some of Lamberts decisions haven’t helped but he inherited a lot of problems here, problems which have been years in the making.
Personally I blame the owner but many on here don’t. |  | | |
| Article on ITFC - D3D4 football on 22:41 - Mar 9 with 1575 views | Felstow1978 |
Hi Will
To turn your question around, why do you think Oxford have done so well this season? | |
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| Article on ITFC - D3D4 football on 23:42 - Mar 9 with 1507 views | monty_radio |
Some posters have claimed we are now a poor side, but all would say we are a very poor team. We have players that most in this league probably couldn't pay such wages for and who are technically well up with L1 standards. Our possession stats are at the very top. But it's all played out in inoffensive areas without any forward thrust and generally ends with a hopeful ball over the top to a non-existent forward line. It's a painful watch, just as it was when we slid out of the Championship without a whimper into a league that we hadn't frequented for 62 years. | |
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| Article on ITFC - D3D4 football on 00:25 - Mar 10 with 1466 views | oxfordunitedfan86 |
| Article on ITFC - D3D4 football on 22:41 - Mar 9 by Felstow1978 |
Hi Will
To turn your question around, why do you think Oxford have done so well this season? |
Hi,
I think this is probably down to three factors - a generally good side; a manager who can get the best out of his players; and a fair amount of luck - we have a knack of scoring late goals. There have been bad spells and there have been good spells; just over a month ago, we lost 4-0 to Peterborough. I don't think we deserve to go up, and it's still very tight, but I think that getting to the playoffs would be a great achievement for a club that was in the Conference 10 years ago. | | | |
| Article on ITFC - D3D4 football on 04:52 - Mar 10 with 1394 views | IPS_wich |
You can point the finger in three directions (and I know I'm going to get some pelts for one of these):
1: Our owner:
- Bought a club in financial meltdown thinking that an injection of funds would see a huge return on his investment if quickly promoted (a flawed ideology).
- Appointed two managers (Keane and Jewell), gave them both money, but both turned out to be shizen.
- Appointed a capable but limited manager (McCarthy) who bailed us out of hole but then gave him bu$$er all funds. Including the infamous 2015 January transfer window when we sat top of the league and he sanctioned two freebie signings (both as back ups in case of injury) and $100k on Freddie Sears (who for some reason was being seen as a bit of a saviour a few weeks ago despite scoring a goal every six games on average!!)
- Seemed content to eek out a succession of mid-table championship finishes playing a style of football that would make watching paint dry seem exciting
- Spent the first nine years of his ownership living a reclusive existence and appointing a succession of Managing Directors of the club who had ZERO experience in football
- In an attempt to break the cycle published a five year plan in 2018 (which most fans were happy with) and appointed an up and coming manager in Hurst (and a lunatic assistant), but then sanctioned that manager's sale of every proven championship standard player in the squad (that wasn't injured) and their replacements with players who looked alright in League One and Two
- Correctly addressed that mistake quickly but replaced Hurst with Lambert - a manager who despite a decent start to his managerial career ten years ago had won only 30% of the games he oversaw in the previous six years with three clubs (including two relegations)
- And then his piece de resistance ten weeks ago - gave said Manager (who at the time hadn't overseen a win in the last 11 games) a new five year contract
2: Our last two managers
- Much has been covered above, but it is impossible to describe how abject our last two managers have been. We have won 22 out of our 93 games under them and three of those wins were in EFL trophy
- The less said about Hurst's tenure the better, but he managed to take a staid, unimaginative but stable mid-Championship team and in one transfer window turned us into a clueless, pi$$ weak shadow of a side full of lower division players with no experience of championship football
- Lambert managed to achieve something I would have thought impossible. He took a poor team, made some small changes in personnel that made zero difference to the quality of the football, yet managed to increase crowd numbers and convinced 18,000 of us (see Point 3 below) that going down was a good thing and the club would be better for it!!
- Has then flattered to deceive, implementing a rotation policy that even Barcelona would struggle to successfully deploy, before being found out for the tactic-less charlatan that he is
- Has evolved into the football equivalent of Chemical Ali ('So Paul, another loss?'; 'I wouldn't describe it like that, we dominated the game to such an extent that even when I played for some of Europe's biggest clubs I don't recall ever dominating a game as much'; 'But Paul, we haven't scored in the last five games', 'You don't understand, goals are just one measure of performance, we dominated possession and the lads couldn't have given me any more')
3: The fans
- We have effectively sanctioned this sh1tshow by sitting on our hands for the majority of Evans' tenure; only losing it as we headed to a third successive boring Championship finish under McCarthy (yes his time was done, but the vitriol aimed at him was pretty disgusting)
- We've accepted mediocrity, we haven't raged, we even applauded the team and manager off on Saturday as we lost our third ('must win') home game in eight days because they had managed to avoid being as abject as they had earlier in the week at home to Fleetwood
And yes I'm as culpable as any other fan. I might live the other side of the world, but as I turned iFollow off at 1am on Sunday morning, my first thought was 'Well it was Coventry, they are top of the league, at least we played much better than the other night.'
Perhaps the problem is that when you are in the process of dying from a death by a thousand paper cuts you don't realise you are dying until it's too late?? | | | |
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