Accrington Web - 2014 Prediction League; Game 8 v Oxford Utd (away)

Oxford Utd

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 :D), by 2-1 (goals by Odejayi and Gray – who features in this season’s list of leading goalscorers in League 2! :D) ….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 :eek:); 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 :o:o). 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 :p:p - 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 :D………P22 W2 (Hartlepool and Plymouth, as above) D5 L15 for 11 points ……… Makes us look like Barcelona, methinks! :D:D:D

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 :rolleyes:); the PointlessPaintbox :confused: was less rewarding; out in Round One, 2-0 at Cheltenham ……Oh, and speaking of managers, they’ve had 18 :cool: 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. :D

If it wasn’t so embarrassing, it’d be funny; this, remember, is the side which replaced the Dear Dead Stanley of 1962 :o, 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 :mad:. That, though, was as good as it got; relegated in 1988, they fell through the divisions through the years :o, losing their League status in 2006, to be replaced by …………..now, let me think ……………..oh yes, us! :D:D. That relegation to the Conference made them the first-ever team which had won one of the major trophies to lose their League status :p; 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’ :D 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 :cool:; 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 :p:p: 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 …….. :D:D:D) ..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 :eek:…….well, not yet anyway! :D

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 :D (was it my impression, or was he p***ed off big style at being subbed? :D:D); 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! :p:p:p

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! :D

Good luck James Beattie (In Whom We Trust :D), 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! ……………:)

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