The
play-off charge we had been beginning to get excited about came to a
stuttering halt as Oxford found themselves beaten at home to a
mediocre Chesterfield side. The curse of the Kassam struck once again
it seems, as this result means that Oxford have now been beaten seven
times at home this season. No wonder so many are feeling disgruntled.
Oxford
looked to get on the front foot from the kick-off and, just as they
had in midweek against
Barnet, it was a lively start. But it wasn't long before we found
ourselves on the back foot as Chesterfield, from their first (and as
it turned out, only) chance of the game, took the lead. Defensively
it was a really poor goal to concede, failing to deal with a simple
long ball on the right-hand side which fell to the feet of Marc
Richards who buried the ball into the back of the net.
But
neither fans nor players were disheartened by the early setback and
the extent to which United dominated the first half was impressive.
However, through a combination of bad luck and a lack of composure in
front of goal the numerous chances Oxford created in the first half
all failed to level the scores. Deane Smalley in particular was a
repeat offender, doing really well on numerous occasions to get
himself into a good position only to fluff his lines at the crucial
moment.
The
first of these clear chances came as goalkeeper Tommy Lee – who had
been the subject of much taunting from the home fans – spilled a cross at Smalley's feet, but he
was unable to scramble it over the line and Chesterfield were able to
clear. And again he was inches away from an equaliser when a
dangerous ball from Damian Batt beat the keeper, but Smalley just
couldn't stretch enough to reach it when the slightest of touches would
have resulted in a goal. Smalley's hat-trick of missed chances came
shortly before the half, when an excellent ball from Scott Davies put
him through one-on-one with the goalkeeper, who was quick to go to
ground. But instead of chipping it over the now-helpless keeper
Smalley instead chose to blast the ball at his face and the chance
was missed.
Chesterfield
also played their role...the role of irritating, time-wasting
match-spoilers. They were aided in their attempts to slow the game
down to a walking pace by a thoroughly inept referee who did nothing
to move the game on and played a laughably small amount of injury
time after numerous stoppages for dubious 'injuries' to the
Chesterfield players.
But
if it seemed slightly unbelievable that we could have found ourselves
1-0 down after an impressive first-half performance, the second was
an uncomfortably familiar demonstration of how not to overcome a
single-goal deficit. United created nothing, looking utterly clueless
going forward and awful in possession. Countless times passes went
astray and possession was wasted, and the lack of movement off the
ball betrayed a side that was completely out of ideas.
Both
Sean Rigg and Alfie Potter, both of whom are usually dangerous
players, had subdued games. They saw plenty of the ball, especially
in the first half, but were unable to do anything with it and both
struggled to get past the Chesterfield full-backs.
In
a sign of desperation, Chris Wilder threw Harry Worley into the fray
towards the end of the game, the result being that Oxford started
pumping balls forward to the big man which were harmlessly punted
back. To see us looking so listless when chasing the game and totally
incapable of testing the keeper at all in the second half was
incredibly frustrating when chasing the game. And especially because,
on the evidence of the first half, Chesterfield would never have been
able to withstand a sustained period of pressure if we could only
have kept the tempo up.
But
it wasn't to be, and we now look to our impressive away form to
rebuild confidence against Northampton next weekend. The more
reactive elements amongst our supporters have been quick to declare
our season 'over' after this result, but the fact is that it was
pretty unlikely that we would be able to reach the play-offs before
this match and it's pretty unlikely now. It is, however, still
possible.
0 comments:
Post a Comment