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Matchday Thread - Derby County v Oxford United (30/07 15:00)


Sean

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Isn’t it great to be back, nervy game today but I think our quality came through in the end. Sibbo made the difference I think even early on we have learnt we can’t play Smith , Conner and Bird together as they are too similar. We still need some more options up front , but good first signs. Last thing, I hope the South Stand find their voice soon they were poor today, if it hadn’t been for the SW upper it’d have been very quiet today. 

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19 minutes ago, Donegal Ram said:

Hourihane didn't influence the game as we hoped but came up with the goal at the end. Sibley turned that game in our favor really when he came on. Good win plenty to work on with fluidity.

Rosenior wasn’t slow in mentioning Sibley’s contribution either, the runs in behind, stretching the opposition in the first few minutes after coming on.

He did exactly what was required and battled well, let’s hope this is his year. It was noticeable he didn’t panic either and picked Hourihane out with the pass. 

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Not going to lie, I felt quite emotional when the pitch announcer did his bit in the centre circle - you could tell he meant every word and it brought it home just how close we came to never being at a match again.

As for the game I thought we were way the more skillful side, I was struck how much more physical it was and also how much the ref let go. All in all we were good value for the win.

Oh, and Karl Robinson is a right mardy sod...

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Lifted my mood no end to see us win again in a new season, in a new era. Think today is what we ought to get used to. I don't think the likes of Hourihane will be afforded the chance to boss games, it'll be a scrap and we'll need them to produce that one piece of quality in the 90 mins to make the difference. We have some good quality for this league, as long as we show as much fight as the teams playing us and don't get bullied, we should be confident our quality will win us a lot of games. Delighted for Clowes today too.

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Tough game, gonna be a few walking wounded after that!

I was concerned that given the number of new players it might take us a while to gel (it still might) and we'd be playing catchup.  If we can pick up some good wins like this one early doors though whilst we're still squad building and getting to know each other, it will set us up nicely for a good season. 

Given some of the challenges flying around though that didn't get booked (is that the standard for league 1?!?) we're gonna need a few more than the 4-5 players LR mentioned the other day!

Edited by maxjam
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5 minutes ago, Dai Capp said:

Not going to lie, I felt quite emotional when the pitch announcer did his bit in the centre circle - you could tell he meant every word and it brought it home just how close we came to never being at a match again.

As for the game I thought we were way the more skillful side, I was struck how much more physical it was and also how much the ref let go. All in all we were good value for the win.

Oh, and Karl Robinson is a right mardy sod...

A right mardy sod and a banker to boot

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11 minutes ago, TexasRam said:

Isn’t it great to be back, nervy game today but I think our quality came through in the end. Sibbo made the difference I think even early on we have learnt we can’t play Smith , Conner and Bird together as they are too similar. We still need some more options up front , but good first signs. Last thing, I hope the South Stand find their voice soon they were poor today, if it hadn’t been for the SW upper it’d have been very quiet today. 

I sort of agree, I can’t help feeling it needs one of the 3 to be more central and advanced, Collins never had an out ball/foil/service in the central area. Bird and Smith looked good individually, Hourihan drifted around and was invisible for 60+ minutes and then ? bang ! Job done. I suppose that’s what quality means. But the unit needs work 

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Wildsmith - one good save 

knight - such a good player did excellent standing in at right back 

Davies - decent 

Cashin - did well but had a lot of chances to pass forwards to players making runs but didn’t 

Roberts - did ok 

Bird - fairly static I thought 

Hourihane - similar to Bird which meant we lacked movement - scored a Good goal when pushed forward 

Smith - hardly touched the ball I thought and not overly progressive - not sure about central midfield with the other two 

Barkhauzen - saw little of the ball mainly because no one passed it to him 

mendiz Lang - excellent/sloppy/ excellent - defenders don’t like him but we should as he has a go at defenders MOM 

collins - knows what his job is.

subs Sibley - game changer and without him we don’t win that one please keep him and use him 

Good start to first half then very sloppy and a decent finish to first half followed in the second half with a sloppy start but finished well once Sibley came on. We missed some very decent chances whilst we gave away some very sloppy chances to Oxford. I couldn’t really work out Oxfords game plan apart from putting the odd ball over the top of the two centre half’s on the angle. Anyway it’s nice to win a first game and have a football club.

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9 minutes ago, jono said:

I sort of agree, I can’t help feeling it needs one of the 3 to be more central and advanced, Collins never had an out ball/foil/service in the central area. Bird and Smith looked good individually, Hourihan drifted around and was invisible for 60+ minutes and then ? bang ! Job done. I suppose that’s what quality means. But the unit needs work 

It’s seems to much of a muchness with the 3, but it is game 1 so time will tell. You’re spot on though quality shone through in the end. 

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Sibley changed the game by pulling defenders into areas they didnt want to be. We needed that energy and pace going forward. 

They did a job on Bird and placed a man on him all game. Really needed Smith or Hourihane to come help get the ball first half in particular, but Cashin could have done a bit more by striding into the space in front of him to create more angles.

Collins will be a bit frustrating at times but he will get goals. Was very unlucky with his one off the line today. 

NML and Knight we running it in the most part. Barkhuizen didn’t get it in the game as much as that side of the pitch wasn’t used as much. 

Impressed with Roberts. Interesting using Pep style fullback tactics of having them almost at central midfield at times. 

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Loved that for a day out.

NML, Knight and Bird all very good. Sibley definitely freshened things up when he came on too.

Bit disappointed with Collins, Barkhuizen and Hourihane overall but, such is their quality, they can and will win matches with one moment of brilliance.

Interesting to see a couple of Oxford fans single out Wildsmith on their forum. Some errant kicks but made a decent stop and I could see what we were trying to do with his passing out from the back.

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Chatting to elderly chap sitting next to me ( my son to his daughters “ I think grandma’s pulled!’) . We agreed prior to start that at least we’d know who Wildsmith was!

Thought NML the epitome of built like a brick s**thouse - his shoulders are almost as wide as he’s long and he’s certainly going to scare a few defenders.

In the end though the result was a big bonus but just being there made the day so special.

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17 minutes ago, Sparkle said:

Wildsmith - one good save 

knight - such a good player did excellent standing in at right back 

Davies - decent 

Cashin - did well but had a lot of chances to pass forwards to players making runs but didn’t 

Roberts - did ok 

Bird - fairly static I thought 

Hourihane - similar to Bird which meant we lacked movement - scored a Good goal when pushed forward 

Smith - hardly touched the ball I thought and not overly progressive - not sure about central midfield with the other two 

Barkhauzen - saw little of the ball mainly because no one passed it to him 

mendiz Lang - excellent/sloppy/ excellent - defenders don’t like him but we should as he has a go at defenders MOM 

collins - knows what his job is.

subs Sibley - game changer and without him we don’t win that one please keep him and use him 

Good start to first half then very sloppy and a decent finish to first half followed in the second half with a sloppy start but finished well once Sibley came on. We missed some very decent chances whilst we gave away some very sloppy chances to Oxford. I couldn’t really work out Oxfords game plan apart from putting the odd ball over the top of the two centre half’s on the angle. Anyway it’s nice to win a first game and have a football club.

Agree with much of that.  Especially the Cashin comment.  I think (and I would hope that) he gets better at that through the season, when he realises that in this league he has a bit more time to pick out a better forward pass…

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On my way back to woodley berks. Have just been reading the Oxford site who think we should have been down to 10 and it should have been a draw.

I was a bit under whelmed by Oxford, did some decent things in midfield but never really looked like scoring. 
 

I thought we were disjointed but that will improve, NML was mom for me and Sibley did well when he came on. 
I though we deserved the 3 points but we need to improve.

A bit shocked with the rough stuff. If this L1 ? You can man handle your player in the box? Tackles deemed ok today would get you a red in the Prem. 

to be fair the ref was bad but bad for both teams, punished Collins for nothing but gave nothing for other assaults. 
 

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Deserved win.

They frustrated us in the first 10 mins of the second half, but we grew into the game after that, particularly after Sibbo came on. At the time we scored it was coming, and had been for a good 10 minutes beforehand.

Oxford were decent enough but lacked the individual quality that our players had. 1-0 in the end may even have flattered a little. Thought we were relatively comfortable for the last half hour, and when we scored I didn’t really see them getting one back.

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