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Post-Match Thread and Ratings Southend United 0-0 Oxford United

Watched the game on I Follow.
I am sure I will not be alone in saying the match changed following the departure of White from the from the field following him sustaining what seemed to be a hamstring injury. The team that played following White's substitution might have been made up of completely different players from the ones who started the match. It was hard to believe that a change of shape could have produced such an instant negative impact on so many performances.
I have a lot of sympathy with CP as on Tuesday the formation was changed following the introduction of Kightly and this generated an immediate improvement. It is easy to be wise after the event but at the time today's substitution was made it was surely hard to predict what was to follow, especially with Tuesday's events fresh in the mind.
I thought we looked really good before White went off, and, our performance instantly dropped after he left the field and then it became progressively worse. Also of no help to us was the fact that they were a seriously niggly side and the referee was of the permissive persuasion. As the game went on the officials seemed less inclined to give us anything and this disrupted our efforts further. Add the weather and the recipe for chaos was complete.
For me the game confirmed that we need to play a derivation of 5-3-2 as our wingers are just not playing well or consistently enough to justify 4-4-2. 5-3-2 also allows us to play Dieng, Yearwood and Mantom together in midfield and one would think that CP will want to start games with all three on the field.
In the second half we were quite dismal, but, despite the mediocrity all around him Moore was composed, intelligent and skilfull and bailed out our defence on numerous occasions. Without him, and a good save by Oxley near the end, we might well have lost the game.
The season is long and it will include some poor performances. This was not good but was not a disaster, and, a point is a point.
Ratings:
Oxley 6.5. Mixed in some respects. A particularly good save near the end but some moments of real indecision also.
JD: 6. One who was less effective after White's departure.
Coker: 6.5. Heavily involved in the first half and less so in the second.
White: 7. Until he went off I thought he was playing really well.
Turner: 6.5. Did not always inspire confidence.
Moore: 8.5. Head and shoulders above his colleagues, especially in the second half. Would have been 9 but for a couple of shonky backpasses.
Mantom: 6.5. Tried hard and did some good things but was one of those seemingly disrupted by the formation change.
Dieng: 6. Did some good things but thought distribution was below usual standard, especially in the second half.
Cox: 7. Was everywhere and never stopped running and did some really good work, especially before White's departure. Unlucky when he hit the underside of the bar in the first half.
Yearwood: 6. Better than Tuesday but still not quite match fit. It is coming though.
Hopper: 6. Given some protection by the referee early on but less and less as the game went on. As our performance deteriorated he received little or no support.
Substitutions:
Kightly: 5. Had one or two nice touches but struggled to get into the game and made no real impact.
Mc Coulsky: 5.5. Did nothing either way to resolve the debate that surrounds him. Showed pace but found it hard to make any real impression. Like Hopper in the second half he received little in the way of support.
Theo: 5. Did nothing to catch my eye for the short time he was on the pitch.
A game best forgotten and let us hope such performances are a rarity.
 
If you believe that formations and tactics don't matter then what would be the point of having a manager? Without the right gameplan good sides will look very ordinary.
I assume a good side would adapt. If the game plan has to be abandoned in the first half at 0-0 and against the bottom bunch, and we still don't muster a shot on target, that makes us an ordinary side, no?
 
The shape was everything today
I would have moved dieng to cb
It wasnt even a competition in the middle of the park with our three bossing it.
Yep said this to my mate re Dieng. Why change shape when your team is absolutely destroying the opposition?
We just resorted to hoof ball 2nd half and completely by passed our midfield who were in control of the game prior to the shape change!
 
Made a point of watching McCoulsky as he’s a bit of an enigma for me. He obviously knows where that net is but I’m trying to understand the other parts of his game.

So he came on around the 70/71 minute mark and kicked the ball precisely.....





NEVER. Yes, that’s right. Not once. In 26 minutes.

Almost got his head to one and had one bounce off his upper arm, but actual touches of the football with his foot, zero.

Now that could be that he doesn’t go looking for the ball the way you might see a Cox or a Robinson do, or it could be we just didn’t have the guile today to play to his strengths. Either way, TODAY, we had an entirely ineffective player for more than a quarter of the game.
We didn't play to any forwards strengths 2nd half, no matter who would have been there he had no quality support at all !
 
A game of two halves, more precisely, a game of before and after John White left the field! In the first half we were cruising, looked good and apart from not taking any shots and attempting to walk the ball into the back of the net, we were by far the better side. On paper, the switch to 442 after JWs injury made complete sense, and I was quite happy to see Kightly come on. However, we instantly lost the width, and got through to half time unscathed.

Oxford came out all guns blazing second half with the foresight of our formation change, and the weather also got worse so it was never going to be a classic. In this case, despite some criticism towards CP, this was the plan b - unfortunately it didn't work! Oxford looked like a pretty average league 2 side, big lumping guys bullying their way forward, so easy to see why they are bottom of the table. We didn't cover ourselves in glory either, why we keep launching the ball skywards when we are far better at playing the ball on the deck is beyond me?

A couple of positives, Dieng, Moore and Cox all looked excellent today. We didn't concede, and we got a point that I wasn't expecting at 75 minutes! And when the scuffle broke out, both Oxley and Kightly kept calm and backed off!

And negatives:
How Tom Hopper didn't have his head ripped from his shoulders is a miracle, no protection from the officials at all. I just hope the poor guy isn't too badly beaten up.

Johnny White getting injured, looked like a hamstring to me. Also saw on his twitter feed that he lost his grandmother this morning as well, so despite everything he was playing well and got hurt. Hope he is okay.

Coxy 's shot bouncing back out - I thought we had scored! And boy that game needed a goal!

The ref and two lino's were embarrassingly bad!!!
 
I think the first error was not having a plan B if one of our centre backs had to go off. Neither Lennon (who I assume is fit again as he was on the bench the other night) or Kyprianou were on the bench and CP didn't want to switch Dieng there, so we were forced to change from a formation that was working well to one that was ineffective.

For me, even given the subs we had, he could have brought Robinson on for White, and then shifted Dieng back to CB and Cox behind Hopper and Robinson where he's been so effective the last few games.

Poor choices by CP today, atrocious conditions and appalling set of officials made for a highly forgettable experience.

Let's hope they bounce back at the Gills next week, and also get a morale boosting Checkatrade win at Col Ewe on Tuesday.
 
Watched the game on I Follow.
I am sure I will not be alone in saying the match changed following the departure of White from the from the field following him sustaining what seemed to be a hamstring injury. The team that played following White's substitution might have been made up of completely different players from the ones who started the match. It was hard to believe that a change of shape could have produced such an instant negative impact on so many performances.
I have a lot of sympathy with CP as on Tuesday the formation was changed following the introduction of Kightly and this generated an immediate improvement. It is easy to be wise after the event but at the time today's substitution was made it was surely hard to predict what was to follow, especially with Tuesday's events fresh in the mind.
I thought we looked really good before White went off, and, our performance instantly dropped after he left the field and then it became progressively worse. Also of no help to us was the fact that they were a seriously niggly side and the referee was of the permissive persuasion. As the game went on the officials seemed less inclined to give us anything and this disrupted our efforts further. Add the weather and the recipe for chaos was complete.
For me the game confirmed that we need to play a derivation of 5-3-2 as our wingers are just not playing well or consistently enough to justify 4-4-2. 5-3-2 also allows us to play Dieng, Yearwood and Mantom together in midfield and one would think that CP will want to start games with all three on the field.
In the second half we were quite dismal, but, despite the mediocrity all around him Moore was composed, intelligent and skilfull and bailed out our defence on numerous occasions. Without him, and a good save by Oxley near the end, we might well have lost the game.
The season is long and it will include some poor performances. This was not good but was not a disaster, and, a point is a point.
Ratings:
Oxley 6.5. Mixed in some respects. A particularly good save near the end but some moments of real indecision also.
JD: 6. One who was less effective after White's departure.
Coker: 6.5. Heavily involved in the first half and less so in the second.
White: 7. Until he went off I thought he was playing really well.
Turner: 6.5. Did not always inspire confidence.
Moore: 8.5. Head and shoulders above his colleagues, especially in the second half. Would have been 9 but for a couple of shonky backpasses.
Mantom: 6.5. Tried hard and did some good things but was one of those seemingly disrupted by the formation change.
Dieng: 6. Did some good things but thought distribution was below usual standard, especially in the second half.
Cox: 7. Was everywhere and never stopped running and did some really good work, especially before White's departure. Unlucky when he hit the underside of the bar in the first half.
Yearwood: 6. Better than Tuesday but still not quite match fit. It is coming though.
Hopper: 6. Given some protection by the referee early on but less and less as the game went on. As our performance deteriorated he received little or no support.
Substitutions:
Kightly: 5. Had one or two nice touches but struggled to get into the game and made no real impact.
Mc Coulsky: 5.5. Did nothing either way to resolve the debate that surrounds him. Showed pace but found it hard to make any real impression. Like Hopper in the second half he received little in the way of support.
Theo: 5. Did nothing to catch my eye for the short time he was on the pitch.
A game best forgotten and let us hope such performances are a rarity.

I agree with almost everything you’ve said here apart from this bit. Yes we were dominating the game before White’s injury but we were also failing to get shots in on goal. My view on that is it was a mixture of overplaying at certain times but I also feel we had too many players in defensive or midfield positions and not enough further up the field. You can understand midfielders not busting a gut to drive past strikers at that point in a game because they need to conserve energy for the rest of the game and would be horribly out of position if we lost possession. But what Powell could have done, was stick with Theo Robinson from the start today and had Dru on the bench as he’s only just back from injury and has played 3 games in a week.

That would have meant when Cox dropped deep (as he does anyway, regardless of formation) we would have had 2 players in the box rather than just Hopper. For me this made the defending for Oxford much easier. They had a lenient ref so they just bullied the hell out of our only threat - Tom Hopper and they were then half way there to earning a point.

I do think the weather played a massive part in today’s result. It was very windy and must have been pretty difficult conditions but surely when the weather is like that playing a direct game as we resorted to, is a bad idea? In high winds long balls are generally not going to fall where they normally would. Yes you may get the odd one which fools a defender and you get your chance. But I’d bet that 9 times out of 10 you just lose possession when a short pass might have been a better option.

A frustrating result but at least we got a point and a clean sheet.

Gillingham next Saturday will be tough without Demetriou and White. Hopefully Harry Lennon can hit the ground running quite literally.
 
Worries me than every time something doesn’t go to plan (injury or a goal) Powell claims the game plan does out the window....does he have a plan B???

I asked this question after the Burton game because I don't think he does and got criticized for claiming he doesn't!
 
Well, that was a let down. Dru will get better. Taylor Moore was like two defenders. He was always there with a tackle, a header or a block. He also dribbled his way out with the ball. Fantastic. Two wayward passes, otherwise faultless. The change of formation affected us big time. Suddenly their wide men had space to attack, and made the game more even. Before that it was mainly us against their defence. Credit has to go to the Oxford back four by the way for the way they wouldn't let us have many shots. Kightly, hmm. Hurry back Bunn, a much better and quicker version of Kightly. The second half we mainly hoofed it, which is not the reason we won 3 on the trot. No tap ins when hoofing.
 
One negative thought after today's game. How many goals will our midfielders score this season, decent players but hard to see them scoring ten between the lot of them all season. Successful teams have goals from midfield players. A bit of a worry.
 
A game of two halves, more precisely, a game of before and after John White left the field! In the first half we were cruising, looked good and apart from not taking any shots and attempting to walk the ball into the back of the net, we were by far the better side. On paper, the switch to 442 after JWs injury made complete sense, and I was quite happy to see Kightly come on. However, we instantly lost the width, and got through to half time unscathed.

Oxford came out all guns blazing second half with the foresight of our formation change, and the weather also got worse so it was never going to be a classic. In this case, despite some criticism towards CP, this was the plan b - unfortunately it didn't work! Oxford looked like a pretty average league 2 side, big lumping guys bullying their way forward, so easy to see why they are bottom of the table. We didn't cover ourselves in glory either, why we keep launching the ball skywards when we are far better at playing the ball on the deck is beyond me?

A couple of positives, Dieng, Moore and Cox all looked excellent today. We didn't concede, and we got a point that I wasn't expecting at 75 minutes! And when the scuffle broke out, both Oxley and Kightly kept calm and backed off!

And negatives:
How Tom Hopper didn't have his head ripped from his shoulders is a miracle, no protection from the officials at all. I just hope the poor guy isn't too badly beaten up.

Johnny White getting injured, looked like a hamstring to me. Also saw on his twitter feed that he lost his grandmother this morning as well, so despite everything he was playing well and got hurt. Hope he is okay.

Coxy 's shot bouncing back out - I thought we had scored! And boy that game needed a goal!

The ref and two lino's were embarrassingly bad!!!

I agree that Moore looked excellent, and Cox was very good before the White sub. However Cox despite working hard got more and more frustrated in the second half and started giving too many cheap free kicks away.

Likewise, I thought Dieng was good until the sub, however I thought he was awful afterwards, especially in the last 5 mins when (perhaps under CP's instruction?) he decided to play up front.
 
The problem today was that we didn't try to win the game after JW went off.

We kept a deep line at the back with the midfield just in front.

Maybe that's OK against a top of the table team but not against a side second from bottom of the division with one league win all season.

That was pathetic and self inflicted.

Please show some attacking intent.

We didthe same in the second half at Plymouth.

STOP IT.

The fixtures after 20th October are much more difficult so we need to accumulate points while we can.
 
One negative thought after today's game. How many goals will our midfielders score this season, decent players but hard to see them scoring ten between the lot of them all season. Successful teams have goals from midfield players. A bit of a worry.

We've been spoilt in recent years in having Wordsworth, Lenny and Timlin , all of whom chipped in a fair amount from midfield. It worries me too, but if we've got strikers all scoring double figures then I'm not so sure it matters.
 
One negative thought after today's game. How many goals will our midfielders score this season, decent players but hard to see them scoring ten between the lot of them all season. Successful teams have goals from midfield players. A bit of a worry.

I can't imagine Dieng and Mantom getting more than a handful of goals between them. I think Dru given a run could get maybe 4 or 5, he's been very unlucky not to get a goal to date. Other than that, I guess it depends on whether we stick with the wing backs. I'd fancy Kightly and McLaughlin to chip in a few each if on form.
If not, we need the strikers to keep up their current scoring rate.
 
Delayed review due to travelling home and mandatory pub visit.
The vocal (seriously mate...:Gun:) gentleman ...behind me in West U..raised a fair point in that the ref only policed the last 20 mins, the rest being a bun fight...and we weren't savvy enough to play that game ??

Crap weather, atmosphere sort of reflected that...losing JW knocked us for 6 formation wise.

A pretty dull event really...ref and the laughing lino just added to the charade.

Holmes was pretty well policed ..almost got away.

Mom either Druuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu....or, Moore
 
7 from 9, 10 from 12. Next three games are winnable. Let's focus on that.

We are now ahead of last year with 17 from 12 compared to 16 from 12. Get that in balance and top six is definitely on track.
 
In hindsight the switch to 4-4-2 looks a mistake, I'm not sure there was any other option with no centre back on the bench. Was Kyprianou injured? It otherwise seems an odd decision to have two full backs on the bench and no CB.

Anyhow Kightly was awful today and Dieng and Mantom got worse and worse as the game progressed. Dieng MOM? ? Dru also looked lost on the right wing after a promising start.

Positives - We played very well until White's injury. Cox very unlucky not to score.
Dru getting 90 mins and playing very well until the formation change.
Oxley's great save at the end.
Defended well for the majority of the game. Taylor Moore looked very good.
Unbeaten in 4 games.

Negatives - Lack of fight in the second half, especially in Midfield. Dieng and Mantom need to do more when the chips are down.
Resorting to hoof-ball and being unable to string two passes together in the second half.
White's injury, Hopper too perhaps?

Overall I'm relieved to get a point in the end. I was bemused by Oxford's constant time wasting as they looked by far the most likely team to score in the second half.

Oxley 7
Demetriou 6
White 7
Turner 7
Moore MOM 8
Coker 7
Yearwood 6
Dieng 5
Mantom 5
Cox 6
Hopper 5 (Looked like he was struggling with injury though)

Subs
Kightly 4
Mccoulsky 5
Robinson 5
Cox 6 what game did u watch?
 
I don't really have much to add to the discussion as most of my opinions have already been expressed by others.

When White went off injured I was hoping Dieng would switch to CB and Klass come on in midfield as the formation was working well, especially in forcing Holmes and Whyte to play more defensively.

The last half of the first half after the formation change saw Oxford get back into the game without really threatening too much.

The less said about the second half the better as both teams hoofed the ball from one end to the other without generating many chances except for the last minute when we seemed to switch off and almost hand Oxford a win.

I was pleased to see McCoulsky get a decent run out but with the ball being lumped forward he never really had much of a chance to do anything in that time.

A positive note was Moore in defence who played well and was the stand out player for us.

Definitely two points lost as playing at home against the team now at the bottom of the league are games you have to win if you want to be in and around the playoff places at the end of the season.
 
Made a point of watching McCoulsky as he’s a bit of an enigma for me. He obviously knows where that net is but I’m trying to understand the other parts of his game.

So he came on around the 70/71 minute mark and kicked the ball precisely.....





NEVER. Yes, that’s right. Not once. In 26 minutes.

Almost got his head to one and had one bounce off his upper arm, but actual touches of the football with his foot, zero.

Now that could be that he doesn’t go looking for the ball the way you might see a Cox or a Robinson do, or it could be we just didn’t have the guile today to play to his strengths. Either way, TODAY, we had an entirely ineffective player for more than a quarter of the game.

Not sure that was his fault. I watched him closely as well from a good position in the South Upper. When he was marked the ball was hoofed up to him (Sometimes marked by 2 defenders). When he found space the ball was never threaded through or came over the top. If we attacked from wide like in the 3 previous wins, he would have got better service.
 
On off the most annoying things for me was our failure to commit players going forward. Several times in the second half whilst we we’re attack big they had one man up front , to which we had THREE defenders on the half way line plus dieg sitting just in front off them. I really didn’t get that.does it really take three of ours?
 
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