Match Day Thread Oxford United v Sunderland - Saturday 19th September - KO 15:00

In agreement with all of that.

That front 5 works for me, I know Maguire can drift in and out be he makes things happen in his moments.

Gooch is a real handful, his numbers last season in a stop start season were superb, he’s below his level in League One for me.

I like Max for his leadership, but Grant certainly uses the ball better and is better natured for retaining his position and shape, I think of him and Scowen play and it works well again will be hard to shift them.

 

Possibly. We have previous for that, Borini did his hamstring taking a free kick iirc.

 

https://www.safc.com/news/team-news/2020/september/oxford-united/highlights-v-oxford

 

What it proves to me is we've a good squad for EFL 1. Theres not much between a lot of our players, much of a muchness.

 

I know it's only two games but non of our four main strikers Grigg, Wyke, O'Brien and Graham have scored or actually looked like scoring with O'Brien missing the most chances.
Does PP persevere with two and hope they gel and the goals come or are we going to see a rotation of the four as we have done so far.
To get the best out of Grigg we need ball played through midfield into channels etc and Graham to a degree, whilst crosses into Wyke seems to be preferred.
The manager needs to sit down and decide his best options and give them a go as for me players getting an hour and not scoring then subbed drains confidence and goal scoring is all about confidence.
Who'dbe a manager and who thought we'd have four strikers to pick from.

 

O'Brien is new so atm he has the benefit of the doubt... the other 3... well form can of course go up and down but unfortunately their lack of class is permanent.

Now we had a good young goalscorer but we did not tie him down quickly enough and he had 'his head' turned, then the same owner went and bought a player the manager did not want!

 

Is this not due to Parkys over cautious approach, duplication on the bench rather than options for instance, a feature of selection so far tells me, its him. It would seem only a run of injuries or suspensions would change his approach, and this would negate any squad advantage we may have.

 

I hope so mate Nice to think the footballing gods are moulding our team, despite Parkys best efforts to play safe. I loved Goochies gutteral roar yesterday. I took that as a " **** you Parky, that's why i should be starting games you"

 

There was a deck chair on top of the van at some point as well as the step ladders

 

Credit where credits due. There's something different about us so far this season that we haven't seen in previous seasons.

First two games of the season have created 43 shots at goal! We have been guilty of being shot shy in the past, so great to see so many players having a pop at goal for a change.

 

2-0 Brighton up the road after 7 minutes.

 

And still going for another.

 

Getting torn apart mate.

Ben White CB for Brighton looks an England player in waiting. Superb defensively and 3 incredible passes. Deliberately watching him to see why they turned down £30million from Leeds and he looks superb.

Hint of Rio about him with the ball.

 

4:15

 

At his age we all tried too hard for a bit of snatch...............

 

No one is commenting much about Graham, but he remains in most of the posted line ups.

After 90 minutes of playing time, I can only recall him touching the ball twice.

Grigg was also mostly anonymous in the opener, despite being almost electric in preseason.

Maybe our opposition sets up to take away our #1 striker, or perhaps most league 1 sides have one solid defender.

I say lets start both at the same time. If together, they fail to influence the match, then they both truly are not up to it.

 

Stats


Over the course of the 90 minutes on Saturday afternoon, hosts Oxford had 47% of the possession, took eight shots of which one was on target, and earned four corners, according to BBC Sport.

Visitors Sunderland had 53% of the possession, took 18 shots of which five were on target, and earned four corners, according to BBC Sport.

 

Agreed about playing two up top, it seems clear our strikers aren't going to net many in this system but playing two together might make all the difference.

I don't think we need to be playing three CBs apart from the odd away game and Hume and O'Nien both have the energy to attack and defend as full backs instead of wing backs. The likes of Gooch and Maguire will score in any system but we don't feed our strikers anywhere near enough in this formation.

 

For me it's Dobson and Power w/2 CB's or Grant and Scowen w/3 CB's.

 

I like your thinking.