[Div3North]

Oxford Utd

V

Accrington Stanley

2014/15 Prediction League – Game 8; v Oxford Utd (away)

Back in April, when we last visited the Kassam, I wrote this;

• Well, well, well ……………….well, well, well, well …………. On 15th February 2014, Oxford stood third in League Two, with 54 points from their (then) 31 league games played; since then they’ve shed a manager (I still don’t know why Chris Wilder jumped ship to Northampton on 26th January; money? It can’t have been the view ….) and they’ve played a further 13 games (5 at home and 8 away) ………….and how many points have they garnered (lovely word, that!) in those 13 games? Answer; EIGHT! And while you’re calling up your football knowledge from the depths, in how many of their last six games have the Us actually scored? Answer; ONE ……..Their last six have resulted in losses by 3-0 at Southend, 1-0 at the Daggers, and 1-0 at Scunthorpe, plus home defeats by Fleetwood (0-2) and York (0-1); their only goals, and only points, came in a 2-0 win at Plymouth (who have lost five of their last six themselves) ………..Welcome back to League Two, Mr Waddock (who currently has a 20% win record)!

We beat them that day, as you’ll remember (well, it was the first time that we had ), by 2-1 (goals by Odejayi and Gray – who features in this season’s list of leading goalscorers in League 2! ) ….Then they went to Northampton, and lost there 3-1. Their so-bright season finished with them in 8th place, but 9 points off the play-offs. Out, on 4th July, went Gary Waddock, whose 8-game tenure (which only began on 22nd March) left him with a win percentage of 12.5% (one win, seven defeats ); in came Michael Appleton (ex Portsmouth, Blackpool and Blackburn, at none of which he stayed long and where, it has to be said, he broke no pots ). The new season began, and they lost to Burton (1-0), and Pompey (1-0), away at Mansfield (2-1) and Morecambe (1-0); P4 L4 GF1 Pts 0 …. Things got a smidge better then, with three consecutive draws - 3-3 at home to the Daggers, and 1-1 at Southend and, on Saturday gone, at fellow strugglers Exeter. P7 D3 L4 F6 A10 Pts 3; above Exeter by virtue of having a better – well, actually, a less bad - GD (-4 against Exeter’s -6), and above Carlisle on the same basis (-11) ….. If you add their last 15 games from last season to their first 7 of this, it’s free-fall ………P22 W2 (Hartlepool and Plymouth, as above) D5 L15 for 11 points ……… Makes us look like Barcelona, methinks!

It isn’t all bad news; they did beat Bristol City 2-1 away in the first round of the Capitulate Cup (which they did in Round 2, losing 7-6 on pens to the Baggies after a 1-1 at the Hawthorns ); the PointlessPaintbox was less rewarding; out in Round One, 2-0 at Cheltenham ……Oh, and speaking of managers, they’ve had 18 since February 2000, although 6 or 7 of those have been “caretakers” (Mike Ford (2ce), Darren Patterson (2ce) and Jim Smith (the Bald Eagle of Derby ) to name but three) ………. And Chris Wilder took up 5 of those 14 years.

If it wasn’t so embarrassing, it’d be funny; this, remember, is the side which replaced the Dear Dead Stanley of 1962 , and soared to the heights of Division One when it still was Division One; indeed, they won the League Cup in 1986, and would have been in Europe but for the Heysel ban . That, though, was as good as it got; relegated in 1988, they fell through the divisions through the years , losing their League status in 2006, to be replaced by …………..now, let me think ……………..oh yes, us! . That relegation to the Conference made them the first-ever team which had won one of the major trophies to lose their League status ; it took them four years to get back, winning the Playoff Final 3-1 against York in 2010.

Striker James Constable left for Eastleigh, Deane Smalley for Plymouth, and winger Sean Rigg for the Wombles; they ProperSigned four; Will Hoskins (28), a striker who’s been, at various times, at Rotherham, Watford, BrizzleR and Brighton; Danny Hylton – another striker (25) – who played a stack of games for Aldershot before moving to that nice Mr Evans’ Rotherham where – if the stats are right – he featured on the pitch once, before he then went on loan at both Bury and at the Wombles (not at the same time ) and then left New York for the dreamy Spires of Academe ; MF Michael Collins (28) – once a Terrier, then an Iron – arrived; so did Fleetwood’s (and Crewe, FC Halifax and Northwich Vics’) MF Junior Brown. Hoskins is injured, and out for a while yet; they dealt with that by signing on loan just about every striker who could write his name : Carlton Morris (18) from Norwich; Alex Jakubiak (18) from Watford out of Macclesfield; Northampton and Walsall’s Alex Nicholls (26) – back from a terrible two years of injury; and Tyrone Barnett, who Posh paid £1.2 million for in May 2012 (that’s Posh as in Peterborough, not as in Spice, by the way …….. ) ..they did loan in a couple of others (Sheff Utd’s George Long, and Bolton RB Joe Riley), but the aim, clearly, was goals, goals and goals – because goals win matches ………..the bad news is, it isn’t working …….well, not yet anyway!

They have 9 goals in all, in 10 games; Danny Hylton has 6 of them, so perhaps Rob Atkinson and Proccie would like to double-team him, given the fantastic job they did on You Fat Bastard on Saturday (was it my impression, or was he p***ed off big style at being subbed? ); Morris and Jakubiak have one each, as has someone else, but I can’t be bothered to look who it is!

Head to head? You may well ask (but you’ll probably wish you hadn’t); we’ve played them 10 times; twice in the Cup two seasons ago (draw 3-3, lost replay 0-2), and eight times in the League – four draws (0-0 three times, including the last of our “Infamous Twelve”, at which time we had 4 points from the first quarter of our games), and 1-1), three defeats (2-0 at Fortress Crown in 2011/2, 5-0 at the Kassam in 2012/3, and 3-0 at home in our last game of the same season); and April’s win; P10 W1 D5 L4 F6 A17; in League meetings, P8 W1 D4 L3 F3 A12 Pts 7 – which is pants, however you write it. At least the Force seems to be With Us at the moment ………….. Well, it certainly isn’t with them!

Deadline for entries is, as always, scheduled kick-off time, which is 7.45pm on Tuesday 16th September. They’re 22nd, with 3 points from 7; we’re 21st, with 7 points from 7; four points cover all the teams from Cambridge in 6th to us in 21st ……….so if you look at it the right way, we’re on a winning run, and just four points outside the playoffs ……….and may it ever be so (with a bonus of 5 more points to put us in the top 7); wouldn’t THAT start the tongues wagging!

Good luck James Beattie (In Whom We Trust ), and thanks for the memories; you were always a gentleman, it seems to me, and that’s how I’ll remember you – oh, and for putting your hand in your pocket to help us out when we hadn’t a pot to **** in (again) …………

Good luck to everyone ……..Keep the Faith!……… and thanks for playing! ……………