2012 squad review - goalkeepers and defence

With the post-season hysterics starting to subside, clubs up and down the country are going through the cathartic process of shedding themselves of deadweights. This process of renewal - soon to be followed by a slew of new signings - encourages everyone to return in August with renewed vigour and enthusiasm.

Reading some views of our squad, it's a wonder that we have any players left at all. Some would have preferred a  frenzied mass slaughter with no player spared the pyre. One of the few exceptions was Ryan Clarke, who gets the Oxblogger Player of the Year Award for the second year running. It is to our massive advantage that other clubs seem too dopey to look at Clarke. His presence, or not, has defined our season. With him in goal we were dependable and effective. Then, when injured he palmed the ball into his own net against Torquay which was a pivot in our and his season.

In came Wayne Brown, who I'd envisaged had spent most his time doing odd jobs around the stadium. He proved himself to be more than a worthy replacement. Just as we thought we'd got away with it he too got injured. Connor Ripley came in and looked shakey beyond belief. We completed the season with four keepers in five games. It was hardly the bedrock upon which to sustain an effective promotion chase. If people want to blame Chris Wilder for any failure; they might want to consider how good Ryan Clarke was up to the point he got injured and how much we missed him at the moment we needed him most.

The hand-ringing that surrounded our failure to reach the play-offs masks the fact that defensively this season has been a vast improvement on last. Last season we looked porous and niave. The introduction of Michael Duberry has transformed the back-four. His influence, assurance and experience made a critical difference. For a period he was neck and neck with Clarke in terms of player of the year, but he seemed to fade marginally as the season progressed.  Phil Gilchrist was similarly dominant when he returned to the club in our first Conference year, but his performances fell away as a career of wear and tear took their toll. The only concern about Duberry, given his age, is that he could blow up spectacularly at any point next season.

Jake Wright is a great leader and clearly respected by his team mates, but he still gives me the heebie jeebies. He has been caught out many times over the last couple of years trying to be too clever; glancing back headers or playmaking from the back-four. I do wonder whether Harry Worley, whose brief appearances this season have shown him to be a more than able deputy, might feature more regularly next season.

With the introduction of Liam Davis our full-backs have looked more balanced. Davis is pacey and strong, although his crossing could be improved and he always seems to want to beat one too many players. On the other side, Damien Batt, fresh from being voted the best right-back in the division at the end of 2010/11, seemed a more subdued. Perhaps he was fulfilling his pledge to work on his defensive work, perhaps age is beginning to catch up on him a little. It's a tricky balance because Batt is a potent force going forward; but it does leave us with a gap at the back when he does.

Wembley romantisists will be saddened by the inevitable departure of Anthony Tonkin. Oddly, Tonkin has looked more aggressive than in previous years, with his performance against Swindon being his standout display for Oxford. The emergence of Davis and the largely absent Capaldi did leave Tonkin with little future at the club.

The day that football gave up

Was the 5th May the day football gave up?

The FA Cup Final has, for 140 years, been the finale to the football season; a gathering of the football clans in a final sun-blissed celebration of the season's end. This year it was driven into the margins of an early-evening kick off for no obvious reason while the Premier League largely carried on regardless. Even the Football League couldn't be bothered to maintain the facade of solidarity with the Championship finishing a week earlier than Leagues 1 and 2.

For the second time in three years the final was punctuated by faux controversy, which lead the resurrection of the tiresome push for goal line technology. Andy Townsend lead the charge exasperatedly calling for the football suits to get with the programme after Petr Chech clawed Andy Carrol's header from his goal with minutes to go. This ignored the fact a) the ref had made an entirely correct decision and b) the apparently full-proof technology was largely inconclusive. At least Clive Tyldesley tried to gently move the argument on by reminding everyone (for that, read: Townsend) that the whole of the ball had to cross the whole of the line. Which, it clearly hadn't.

Earlier at Vale Park, despite briefly having the play-offs back in our hands, we followed the apathetic trend. Chris Wilder's team selection smacked of defeatism with the likes of Capaldi and Craddock appearing to start for no other reason than giving them game time before the season's end.

The whole season has been like falling down a steep hill. At first we were in control, then we lost our footing; just as we felt we might be able to stand up we'd be out of control again. In the end we just had to hope that when we did eventually come to a halt that all our limbs would be in tact.

By every objective measure this season has seen progress on last year. More goals, less conceded, more points, smaller gap to the play-off spot, more advanced season tickets. More qualitative assessment suggests Chris Wilder's approval rating is falling, although I'd question anyone judging him on the last 8 games rather than the last 46.

The speed of progress is the main debating point. Should we have been promoted this season? If the club's stated ambition is to be in the Championship in five years, then we've certainly put pressure on that ambition by not nailing at least one promotion in the last couple of years. But it is hardly a lost cause, two promotions in three seasons is possible, just. The question is; will Kelvin Thomas get spooked by the current bluster? No chairman is going to be brought down by his manager, and Ian Lenagan isn't going to risk his investment or his ambition waiting for success.

I wouldn't blame Wilder for walking, but I doubt he will. I'd be equally surprised to see a knee-jerk from Kelvin Thomas; the debate on Wilder's future amongst fans is far from conclusive, so while there's support there's a mandate. A more reasoned argument suggests that Wilder has another year to get us up. I'm not really one for setting concrete targets; but with League 2 set to be a more level playing field next season and three years of development in the squad; it's probably not unreasonable to conclude that without at least the play-offs this time next year, it would make Wilder's position a very difficult one.

So, we lie collapsed at the bottom of our hill. We're battered and bruised and feel a little defeated. Football seems a bit of a waste of time, but it won't be long before we're back on our feet, climbing that hill ready for another tumble.

Still fighting. Just.

When we first moved to the Kassam, my seat was at the back of the East Stand with the proper fans. Next to me was a bloke who came with his girlfriend. She was the kind I might have fancied at primary school; a pretty tomboy who could play football with me. I fell a little bit in love with her giggle, which was playful and girly. A chink of light in the greyness.

Under Ian Atkins, in 2004, we were on a promotion charge until he and Firoz Kassam worked out that they were too similar to be in the same room together. Graham Rix came in and rather than try to steer our listing ship to shore he decided, with 8 games to go, that a revolution was needed. We capitulated spectacularly. Having failed to win in the previous six games, we faced Cambridge United. It was 8 years ago to this very weekend, we needed a win to maintain a feint hope of the play-offs. A must win game for a team being strangled by it's lack of momentum. Sounds familiar?

Statistically speaking; the weather was typical of the time of year; grey and cold, not the late spring sun that is supposed to symbolise the final games of the season. We laboured throughout, burdened by an inappropriate playing philosophy and our own expectations. Cambridge scored 15 minutes from time, but we hit back two minutes later. This burst of excitement failed to ignite the Exocet required to fire us into the play-offs. The game continued to peter out as Cambridge defended what they had and we lacked the creativity to break them down.

Then, from nothing Jefferson Louis rattled one in. The gloom lifted, it was back on; me and the bloke next to me glanced towards each other and our eyes met. We'd barely talked in two years, but for that moment, it seemed appropriate to hug. Perhaps it was on. If we could sneak the play-offs then anything could happen. I could hear his girlfriend squealing with excitement on the other side of him. If we could fudge promotion, then we could regroup in the summer as the fully re-modelled Rix vision of the Ajax of middle class England. Perhaps things were going to turn out alright in the end.

They equalised 60 seconds later. Me and the bloke next to me were barely out of each others' arms when everyone fell silent. The gloom descended, the game petered out and the play-offs were beyond us. This was real; no fantasy, no spirit.

The season ground to dust; when we returned the following August, the girl reappeared with poorly died hair, a broken leg and what I can only describe as the blank sunken eyes of a heroin addict. Occassionally she laughed in her light and playful way. But not as often and with little life.

This season seems to be heading the same way; as much as we fight it, we look set to fall short. No end of positive social media marketing can change the direction we're travelling in. The fans tried to turn out in large numbers, but didn't quite make it, we tried to be frenziedly excited, but it was too cold, the players tried to reverse the momentum of recent weeks, but it was just too much.

Our goalkeeping situation appropriately sums up our season; at our strongest we look a division above, when adversity hits, we still seem to have the resiliance to battle on. But this year, throughout the year, fate decided to exact another, heavier, blow. Whatever caused Ripley to flap so hopelessly at their first goal was probably just the winds of inevitability blowing the ball into the net.

I maintain that it is circumstance, not incompetence that has got us into this position. We have improved on last year, and been a victim of a relentless procession of injuries to key people at key times. The belief that we should have a couple of spare 20 goals a year strikers and a ready made replacement for the likes of Leven is not reasonable. We'd be able to carry someone like Dean Morgan if the 7 or 8 key players we'd lost to injury had been fit. Another season offers, as always, the opportunity to refine further; cleanse a little, repair damaged bones, but continue to move forward. I still expect us to do so.

We go to Port Vale in hope, but not expectation but in some ways it is a blessed relief that the likely end is near. I'm tired of fighting the tidal wave of inevitability. If the miracle happens, then perhaps it'll spark us back into life, but I doubt it.

Wilder in. *raises weary fist of defiance*

Let the process not the product decide Wilder's fate

I sometimes wonder whether I have my head in the sand when it comes to our current position. However, it is almost too easy to write a football blog when things are going wrong. It seems, like Eskimos and their hundreds of words for snow (a fallacy, btw); in blog world, there are far more words available for moaning than there are for being rational.

Being rational is a bit boring. Heroism and villainy are a simple narrative. The morass of people in the middle of that spectrum; who are trying their best to do a good job, but perhaps not precisely in the way you’d like, are too difficult to define and pigeonhole. Heroes and villains is also language of mass media; where deadlines are tight, turnaround times are fast and people are under pressure to perform. The fans speak the binary language of the media because the media speak the binary language of the fans. It’s not healthy, but rationally, it’s understandable.

Our current form threatens to blow our chances of the play-offs, and the villain in this piece is the manager. I understand the view; especially if you’re schlepping around the country following the team in expectation of success.

The chap in the photo is Bradley Wiggins, 3 times Olympic champion and one of the favourites for this year’s Tour de France. The photo was taken at 9.30 on the morning of the prologue to Paris-Nice one of France’s biggest stage races. The prologue, or first stage, is a 6 mile time trial. Wiggins was due off the ramp at 3.30pm. His preparation lasted six hours for a ride that lasted 11 minutes.

I recently heard Matthew Pinsent giving advice to those doing the Sport Relief Mile. Professional sportspeople, he said, talk of ‘process over product’. Wiggins couldn’t control the product i.e. the win, because he couldn’t control the weather or the performances of others. What he could do was meticulously follow a process to deliver his best possible personal performance. He came second in the stage, scuppered by the rain on the day, but ultimately won the overall race 8 days later.

The problem with replacing Wilder for failing to deliver the product of promotion is that you have to start over the process of continuous improvement. The other problem with product focus is that there are too many uncontrollables from one season to the next. In League 2 there are 1,104 performances (24 teams playing 46 times). You can control only 46 of them, your own. The manager, therefore, has 4% control over his league position.

League positions themselves are an irrelevance. We will view 7th place as a definition of success. In every other national league in the country, 7th is a failure as it falls outside the play-off places. The line between success and failure in any division, although important, is ultimately arbitrary. 

Firoz Kassam focussed on product all the time; each season brought more promises of promotion and with it a new manager and philosophy. Each season he fell short and, in response, he started the process again. From Mark Wright’s chaotic pub team, to Ian Atkins’ regimented long ball, to Graham Rix’s hopeless Barca fantasy, to Ramon Diaz’s bogsnorkling tippy tappy, to Brian Talbot’s hapless brawlers. One plan after another, written, failed, torn up and started again.

What we can control is our own performances against our previous performances. With two games to go, we have scored 1 goal more and conceded 17 goals less than last year, we have 5 more points. Last year it would have got us a play-off spot. So this year’s ‘failed’ performance (which, to some, should cost Chris Wilder his job) would have been viewed as a success last year.

But last year didn’t have the likes of Crawley and Swindon skewing the competitive arena with their big spending. You could, therefore, argue that those two clubs are forcing Wilder’s removal. Is that what we really want?

This year we have had to be better to stand still, which is massively frustrating. Whether the improvement is fast enough, is open for debate. However, as we get better, we have to develop the infrastructure to help these players perform. People talk about a striking coach and a more effective medical team that can keep the likes of Peter Leven performing at a level that allows him to be that extra bit special.

But in reality what we’re talking about takes a lot of time and money to find the right people. For all the frustrations about potentially missing the play-offs, money being generated from increased season ticket sales (another objective definition of customer satisfaction) needs to be invested wisely. But that can only be done by people who know precisely where that investment is needed. Take any of the current decision making team out of the equation and you introduce a whole world of uncertainty and, with it, far greater risk of failure.

If we were in a failing situation, the risk of further failure from changing things is less important. As a club we have options; we can continue to steadily build as we have done for the last three years. Or we can hope that we can find a manager who can help us progress more quickly. Hope is not quite a stab in the dark, but it’s not far off. 

As fans we look for the product; a win on a Saturday, a promotion, a spot at Wembley. Our frustrations when we don’t achieve those targets are evident. However, if you want a guaranteed happy ending, then go to the cinema. If you want to support a football team; scream, shout and holler in frustration; but if you’re not getting the product you’re after, beware of throwing out the process that is most likely to give you success in the first place.

Is Dean Morgan; misunderstood or just a chuffing lazy git?

Dean Morgan divides opinion, doesn’t he?

Some Oxford fans have struggled to warm to him since he arrived at the Kassam. He has a kind of Lewis Haldane thing going on; all nice haircuts and fitful product. More reasoned assessment seems to be that it hasn’t all been bad; far from it. He's had good games against Northampton and Torquay, he scored against Wimbledon. It’s just when it isn’t happening for him, it isn’t happening. To some, when it’s not happening for the team, it’s Morgan’s fault.

Aside from the Haldane factor, it doesn’t help that he’s got Cristano Montano on the other wing. Not that Montano is demonstrably better than Morgan. He’s scored one more goal but he’s frustratingly raw. However, he’s from West Ham, like lovely little Robbie Hall and he’s foreign; which means rather than boo him, we prod him inquisitively like the Ewoks did to R2D2, cowering in awe when he moves.

It doesn’t help that Morgan is here to help plug a gap left by Alfie Potter’s injury. Potter is a player we hold in high regard despite his own propensity to dribble the ball in the Zone of Least Impact; 30 yards from goal.

Morgan didn’t do ‘Brand Morgan’ any good by sitting on floor in the penalty box as Gillingham streamed downfield looking for a winner on Saturday. He did himself even less favour by getting up just as they were preparing to take a corner denying the referee the opportunity to halt the game leaving us defending a corner with 10 men. And then he strolled off the pitch really slowly showing little sign of the injury that was forcing him off.

Perhaps he should have affected a more dramatic reaction to his injury. He could have gone down like he’d been shot. This would have put pressure on the referee to stop the Gillingham break and allow Morgan medical attention he didn’t actually need.

However, with the Fabrice Muamba case, and just this weekend, Piermario Morosini's death, it is becoming increasingly distasteful to feign injury for such minor sporting gain. You might argue, perhaps, that footballers’ propensity to fake serious injury is so endemic within the game that it has bred complacency amongst clubs, administrators and medical teams; a ‘cry-wolf’ syndrome masking the dangers within the sport. If everyone goes down as though they were dead, how do you know when they actually are? This certainly seems to be a factor in Morosini’s case, where medical support he needed was not readily available.

Nobody would have reacted to Andy Whing had he limped off like Morgan did. We like Andy Whing’s attitude, you see. Perhaps it’s because his game reflects our own behaviour during games; all heart on sleeve, screaming, battling, scrapping. Perhaps if we watched games smoking Gauloises cigarettes, listening to expansive, difficult experimental jazz and discussing Michel Foucalt’s views on post-structuralism we would appreciate the more mercurial talents of players like Morgan.

Those who listen to experimental jazz don’t do it for a catchy tune. They listen to it searching for something they’ve never heard before. Amidst those fleeting moments of beauty and genius are periods of false starts, unlistenable noise and musical cul-de-sacs.

I once heard Professor Brian Cox talking about Cern’s apparent discovery of particles travelling faster than the speed of light. He said that someone asked him how worried he was that the theory of relativity; a fundamental mainstay in the understanding of physics, might be wrong.

Not at all, he said, scientists live on the edge of understanding and are driven by a desire to discover new things. Finding that something previously ‘known’ had become ‘unknown’ was exciting, not scary; it meant there was an opportunity to find out something new.

Jake Wright and Chris Wilder jumped to Morgan’s defence directly after Saturday’s game. Both pointed out that Morgan is a winger and wingers have to run at players and take them on. Sometimes it works, other times it doesn’t. He has to try things that haven’t been tried before; like the theoretical physicist or the experimental jazz musician, making mistakes is all part of his job description. If you don’t make a mistake, you’re probably not trying hard enough.

The scope for success is much narrower if you’re a winger; you’ve got to beat your player, and get an accurate ball into a striker to succeed. If you’re a defender, you don’t even have to play within the rules of the game to have a positive impact. Getting a block in or muscling a striker off the ball are all acceptable means of succeeding in your role.

This mix of required attributes was at the heart of the Chapman substitution; I didn’t understand it at the time, but Wilder explained that he didn’t want to sacrifice the goal-getting abilities of Asa Hall, or the defensive cover of Whing. He didn’t want to sacrifice pace down the wing. But he needed to bring on Constable to try and grab a goal. Chapman was sacrificed because the others couldn’t be. I can see the logic.

Morgan isn’t Lionel Messi; like 99.9% of attacking players around the world there is a high probability that the things he tries will not come off. As Wilder pointed out, there are players up and down the country who are equally frustrating, but it doesn’t make them bad players.

Don't let perfection become the enemy of the good

The palpable sense of entitlement; something I thought we’d cleansed ourselves of during three years in the Conference, is returning.

We’re four scrappy, intense, ugly games from the play-offs. Another two from Wembley. And another one from League 1.

And yet, after two defeats and the last minute draw against Torquay on Monday, people are hurumphing that, even if we do make the play-offs, it is, as one person put it on Radio Oxford, just papering over the cracks.

Or, put another way, even with promotion still achievable, even if we do go up, it won’t have been done in the right way.

Apparently, it's not the Oxford way to scrap our way to success. It's just not very becoming to be dragging our bodies over the line, despite having a squad picked apart by injuries and suspensions.

Yes, there are credible arguments to have about discipline and levels of fitness, or the wisdom of signing 36 year old defenders or relying so much on James Constable's goals. But none of these discussions are for now.

The solutions offered on Monday included Ian Lenagan 'putting his hand in his pocket' and Chris Wilder not relying so much on loanees. Both arguments are as unjust as they are pointless. Of the top seven, only Torquay have less loanees and in between transfer windows Chris Wilder has limited options when it comes to improving his team. And Ian Lenagan has put his hand in his pocket, investing another £200,000 in the squad this year. But, quite rightly, he is not going to bet the farm on getting promotion.

The desire to create the perfect club, whilst still in the midst of a very good season, is a pointless distraction.

Adam Chapman, whose confidence and influence is surging to the fore as the games get more tense and macabre, summed up the mood in his interview post-Torquay. Rather than being incarcerated amongst the wretches of society, wracked with the guilt of killing a man, he’s playing football with a chance of getting to Wembley and having a laugh trying out new things with Asa Hall. The joie de vivre with which those two approach games is been evident in their fantastic performances of late.

I doubt that Michael Duberry, 19 years a professional and probably no more than 13 months from never playing professionally again, is thinking that he'll forgo this season's push for a more aesthetically pleasing run some time in the future.

And I doubt that Scott Rendell, having experienced unimaginable tragedy, is thinking that we should give up a opportunity for brief, fleeting, visceral joy to serve some self-important serious football idyll.

No, we shouldn’t ignore the underlying weaknesses in the club, but, for now, failure is not missing the play-offs; failure is not relishing the battle.

Just over six years ago we played Darlington; I drove into the car park and found a space in the row nearest the Oxford Mail stand. It was 20 minutes before kick-off and there were plenty of other spaces I could have chosen. It was cold, beyond my ticket, I had long given up spending money in the stadium out of apathy rather than protest. I sat and listened to the radio before walking into the Oxford Mail stand with five minutes to spare. We played with four centre-backs, and no style, Neville Roach and Mark E'Beyer were substitutes. We lost 2-0 on our way, of course, to relegation.

Sometimes, before the bigger games, I quietly and jokingly lament the ease with which you could park during the latter Kassam years. Even though our parking remains Conference level as best, everything else about our situation has improved. At least we're not doing a Darlington.

We're not as slick a machine as we want to be, we're not turning teams over with the effortlessness of The Glory Years. We're a band of ragged desperadoes battling against the odds. It may not be The Oxford Way, but it is this season's way. Those without the appetite for the fight might find more satisfaction in following a club seeking some unachievable perfection whilst drifting from one meaningless mid-table season to another.

The harsh realities of Chris Wilder

Well, that happened quicker than I'd expected. A defeat to Morecambe and we've been plunged into crisis. What's more, it's all Chris Wilder's fault.

When Wilder was first appointed, he seemed to be the choice of impoverished and unambitious owners. A fortune was spent trying to blast our way out of the Conference, and when the wheels fell off the Merry and Jim happy bus, the club sought the services of the nice chap from within. However, Darren Patterson lacked the objectiveness to take on the deep challenges that lay at the heart of the Oxford problem.

Chris Wilder was different; an outsider, not just from Oxford, but almost from the entire management firmament. At Halifax he'd steered them to the edge of promotion with a team built of string and Blu Tac, he then avoided relegation despite a 10 point deduction as the club crumbled to dust around him. He then assisted Alan Knill in turning Bury around. Success is not a simple thing to define; but wherever he'd been, Wilder had made a positive impact.

"He understands budgets" was Ian Lenagan's telling praise of his manager after the win against Swindon. At Oxford he had some money, unlike at Halifax, but he brought with him the understanding that he knew he had to use it well.

We approached Wilder with caution; he was a spiky northerner from small time football, an interloper amongst fancy dans of the southern sophisticates at Oxford. But he was lean and demanding, while we were bloated and expectant. We'd been to Wembley and played in the top flight, if others would just get out of our way, we'd be right back up there, that was the attitude. Those that were left were the best fans in the world, that's what we told ourselves.

Wilder gave himself some space by calling Sam Deering his best player - highlighting that he had been disadvantaged by losing him to a broken leg in his first game in charge. We were docked five points, setting us back further. Admist this, he built some decent results and in James Constable, he had a template for 'his type of player'. Everything else about the club, pretty much, was thrown on the fire and replaced. But, with results going our way and us being a bit shy we didn't want to bother him about what he was doing.

We started 2009/10 like a rocket; and the good times kept rolling. Team, management and fans were as one because there was no real need to consider our differences. We played Eastbourne and cruised to a 4-2 win, but Wilder blew his top at our second half performance. This burst the bubble, the honeymoon was over.

What Wilder knew all along, and what we were too complicit in to realise, was that we were a club wallowing in self-importance and complacency. The late 2009 surge which just missed promotion was with a team that had 'been thrown together'. However, we thought the success had been brought about by our spirit; we were told to 'Believe' and good things would happen. Wilder knew that magical powers weren't going to sustain us and when, against Eastbourne, our standards dropped, he was quick to jump on it.

During another uncomfortable period he accused fans of living in the past; practically blaspheming when he dismissed the Milk Cup Final as something of ancient history. He was right, we weren't prepared to accept that we were a failed club, slumming it with Conference pond life buoyed only by successes of men long gone. We might have seen Wilder as coming from 'small time' Bury, but the harsh reality is that he'd taken a step down to come to Oxford.

Although it is easy to back a manager who brings success; you'll rarely find a fan totally happy with that man's methods. That's because he's not there to be a fan, who collectively gain cohesion through a shared past of great games, cups, promotions, away days and players; a whimsical world of magical fairy stories that have boundaries. The manager's job is to mould and organise a group of players into an effective unit within constraints of a finite budget. In comparison to the football dream, real football is instantly sobering.

Wilder's criticism of the team on Saturday again opened up a small window into the real workings of a football club and its manager. He is not shirking responsibility; criticism of the players and the way they play is criticism of the man who chose them. And, on Saturday, who got it wrong.

Part of us wants him to join us in falling to the floor in dispair; making gradiose statements of how the whole season has fallen into disrepair. That's the fans' job, the role we play is to create a hystrionic sideshow which proves football to be more than a game. But, managers have to get up and go again, because if they're hiding under the duvet fearful of leaving the house, nobody else is going to sort the problem out.

So, we want manager's to behave like fans; but if they did that we'd barely be able to function. The history of football management is strewn with managers who have failed because they've believed in the magical powers of fan-like passion - Keegan and Shearer at Newcastle, Dalglish at Liverpool, Ardiles at Spurs. Amongst these are the real managers - Wenger, Ferguson, Westley and Steve Evans, who have brought success through a pigheaded dedication to practical management. I don't like Evans or Westley, but it's difficult to deny their effectiveness.

Wilder's not here to preserve our past. He's here to carve out our future. This will mean getting rid of things which we have become comfortable with, including players and a sense of entitlement. Success is more important to him than it is to us because we'll be here through success and failure and he won't. Therefore, you don't have to like his methods, but you have to respect his right to be a manager.

So what exactly has Chris Wilder done for the Yellows

We're in that part of the season, and in that kind of form where even a Tuesday night trip to Accrington comes with the complete expectation of a comfortable win. Not a hopeful win, not that we'll be happy with a draw, a win is expected and demanded. Which is precisely what we did, of course.

Living up to expectations is a novelty for us. The efficient execution of a plan; the sure fire sign of success, is something that we haven't been able to do for years. I remember not so long ago, listening to the radio and the presenters speculating that back-to-back home wins would make a difference to whichever season it was. We'd subsequently go and drop points citing the pressure. Now, if we expect three points, we get three points. Not always, but often.

Two defeats in 20 is form that other teams have, not us, but it was not that long ago someone on the radio was saying that Chris Wilder had done nothing for the club this season. It was absurd then, of course, but what are those people thinking now?

When Chris Wilder first arrived at the Kassam, what kind of objectives might we have set for him? Promotion from the football league? For sure. And that was achieved. Year on year progress in the league? That was achieved. Beat your biggest rivals? Well, yes, twice. What about; that we should win our big games - not an easy one to quantify, but we've played 8 games under Wilder in front of more than 10,000 fans and won 5.

One defeat was the West Ham League Cup tie which we lost in the last minute to a goal from the soon to be Footballer of the Year and now England captain. Another was Northwich in the last game of the 2008/9 season, which was a crazy time with a crazy team. Only the 5-0 reverse to Bradford last season, you could argue, was a true failure to perform on the bigger stages. In short, we do well in big games. In addition, you have to be in it to win it; it's taken Chris Wilder 3.5 years to put us in front of 8 10k+ crowds - half the time it took to play 8 10k games before that. And during those 8 games we lost 7; the win against Swindon in the Cup.

What might Chris Wilder have achieved? He could have got us up as champions from the Conference, he could have got us out of League 2 at the first attempt, and he might have found a sustainable striking solution rather than rely on James Constable. With a bit more application in a couple of home games, we could be scrapping toe-for-toe with Swindon for the title. You might also argue that he should have kept Dannie Bulman. But these would have simply polished a comparatively golden period. The Conference championship would have been deeply satisfying, but it would have been at the expense of the adrenaline rush of Wembley. I'm happy to have lived through these blips, to have experienced all the highs of the Wilder-era.

Those who criticise Wilder dissolve into the background at times like this; but they are like sleeper cells. There is a chance that we will hit difficulties in the future. Life in League 1 - which appears to be in our future, maybe this year, maybe next - will be a very different proposition again. We may find ourselves in a relegation battle. This is the perfect opportunity for the sleeper cells to return to 'tell us so'. They will claim they were right all along. Chris Wilder is limited and has done nothing for this club.

Apologists will argue that they have a right to criticise, it is their club and they will be around long after Wilder has gone. Plus, they've paid for their tickets - they're customers. These things are true, but if you are indeed a fan in it for the long term; why are you looking for such a short term fix? If you are just a 'customer', then use your prerogative and walk away. If central values of being a fan are loyalty and longevity; people with half an ounce of decency will bestow a little of that on Chris Wilder as he takes us forward.

Doin' the Duberry

In rare idle moments, I've thought about setting up an automated Twitter account that tweets 'Massive game today' and 'Massive 3 points' every Saturday. This seems to be the standard proclamation of many fans each weekend.

I've learnt that defeats are rarely terminal nor are victories a sign of perpetual forward motion. Typically by about Wednesday the previous week's game is forgotten and you're looking forward to a good performance and a win. Your previous exhalations about the season being over are some way behind you.

That said, Saturday's game against Cheltenham felt pivotal to the destiny of the season. Perhaps it was the spring sun, heralding the ending chapter of the season. The proximity to the Easter programme. The fact that we'd definitively move up a place with a win. Whatever it was, there was a surge of expectation surrounding the fixture after two very encouraging results against Rotherham and Wimbledon.

The feeling was that the Cheltenham game could help define where we were going to end up. It didn't, as it happens, but the games and points keep ticking away, which is good. The reality is that we're likely to end up in a play-off place. Five points behind last year's points total with 8 games to play. This is good progress. From just outside the play-offs last year, to just inside this year is to be celebrated regardless of whether it ends up with League 1 football or not.

Pivotal to the shift, has been Michael Duberry and his omission on Saturday was considered a big blow. At the end of last season it was evident we were naive at the back and the introduction of Capaldi, Whing and Duberry was a clear signal of intent to change that facet of our game. Capaldi, of course, we haven't yet seen. Whing has grown into his role as a utility man and Duberry has truly lived up to his billing.

Not that it's been plain sailing; after the Macclesfield game, where Duberry contrived to score his third own goal of the season, a bloke behind me shouted; 'If someone else made as many mistakes as Duberry, they'd be hammered for it'.

A bit harsh. He is clearly a one of the best defenders in the division, his own goals have been as much about being the man on the spot trying to clear the ball as a sign of incompetence. Failure is not to score an own goal, but to not be around to prevent a goal from happening - as one of Jim Smith's famous motivational signs from the 80's sort of, but not quite, said. Things he can't change - his age and size - play against him robbing him of a degree of pace and agility, but all in all he's been a dominant presence in the back four all year.

There is something else. Duberry is, perhaps, the most famous player in the division. He brings a Premier League pedigree you rarely see. Normally players who have played at the top level have long given up by the time they've reached Duberry's age. He may actually be the last player in English football history to play in League 2 and the Champions League.

As such, he brings experience from the very top of the game. He therefore commands a certain respect. It means he gets away with more than those around him. If Duberry dumps someone to the floor, he'll stand over him, holding out his hands out in an exasperated fashion as if to say 'What's he doing, is this really what the game has come to?'. If there's a nasty tackle, he'll be one of the first wagging his finger telling the player off. The referee, more often than not, agrees.

The referee's role, you see, is to uphold its established values and rules. Duberry positions himself not as one of the low-life playing scum, but as similar 'holder of the flame' to the officials. Constable, you'll see bickering with the referee like a petualent child, Duberry, on the other hand, acts with all experience and world-weariness of a parent - which is fundamentally the same role as a referee.

With Duberry taking the morale high ground the referee has no option but to agree to maintain his position as an establishment figure. If a decision goes against him, he'll wave it away as if to say that the referee doesn't know what he's talking about. And he can do that with some credibility as he was playing top flight football a decade before even the top referee in the UK; Howard Webb. In the sea of anonymity that is League 2; Duberry is a monument, an institution. Referees feel the urge to align themselves with him because he's been where they want to be - in the elite. He doesn't do anything wrong; but just makes it difficult for the referee to remain wholly objective.

I call it doing a 'Duberry' - which is not to be confused with the exact same thing happening to you. If you're on the receiving end of a player using their reputation to manipulate the officials, then it has a very different name. After the masterful way he managed, in a 60 second period, to persuade the referee to send-off Paul Tait and then create such incandescence within the Oxford defence that they conceded the goal that lost the game; when it happens to you it's called a 'Jemson'.

Sometimes football just gets in the way

I've had a few goes at writing the opening to this post, so let's get straight to the point: Why did we do a minute's applause for Fabrice Muamba before Tuesday's game against Wimbledon?

It turns out that I'm not the only one who found it an odd spectacle. We all stood dutifully and participated when told to by Peter Rhodes-Brown. Eventually someone suggested on Twitter that he found it uncomfortable it wasn't long before others came out blinking into the sunlight, like hiding refugees after a military junta had been overthrown.

Years ago minute silences were rare, perhaps no more than one a year. They resulted from the passing of a genuine legend of the club and, as a result, were often disrupted by disinterested away fans. During the early 90s, the phrase 'impeccably observed' began to appear in the football lexicon. It was considered a mark of football's renaissance; its new found humanity.

It really jumped the shark in 2002 when fans were expected to observe a moment's contemplation in respect for the Soham murders. I was on holiday as the tragedy unfolded, the detachment that offered made me question why it was happening. The only link it seemed to have to football was that the girls were wearing Manchester United shirts when they went missing.

It wasn't the first non-football silence. A year earlier, we'd marked 9/11 before a gutless home defeat to Macclesfield. But the world seemed to have tipped on its axis and so it was deemed an acceptable diversion. The death of George Best in 2005 introduced a more celebratory mood with the minute's applause.

Now, however, almost every Very Bad Thing (VBT) demands a moment of collective expression. Tuesday night was new because, well, Fabrice Muamba isn't dead. It's no hardship to participate in a minute's applause, of course, but this does seem to have become the stock response of the emotionally stunted. It seems we can't be trusted to find an appropriate, personal, private response to VBTs. Fabrice Muamba's case is shocking in that you don't expect healthy 23 year-olds to have near fatal heart attacks, but why do we need to a minute's applause to support him? Why would anyone not support a young family man struck down like this?

Henry Winter, on the radio, claimed it was because Muamba is a role model profession with a exceptional back-story. It seems that he is the antithesis of what is typically considered to be the professional football stereotype. However, to say that the applause was specific to Muamba possibly overstates just how much interest people really have in Premier League sub-plots. When it was first reported, I thought they meant Christian Samba. Although it turns out he was a goalkeeper in the Republic of Congo and in fact I was thinking about Christopher Samba. Who, apparently, doesn't even play in England at the moment.

No, we did the round of applause because it was what we were told to do. If Muamba was an average-Joe who'd collapsed in Tesco, nobody would have felt the urge for a public outpouring. And yet it is no less tragic or shocking. This is something not specific to an ill young man, but specific to football. Football simply won't allow a normal response to these incidences. It has acquired almost magical healing powers - it is no longer a game, but a collective spiritual force delivered through the rather sinister sounding 'football family'. In a passive aggressive response, we piously 'put football into perspective' by relegating its importance at times like this. As though any rational thinking human being considers a life to have less importance than football, or, indeed, whether there is any need or point to run a league table of such things. There is a kind of 'look-at-me' thing, look at how much we care, which is specific to football. I would love to blame corporate greed or the Premier League, but I think we've been sleepwalking into it for years.

Owen Coyle and Kevin Davies have both acted impeccably in trying to create some space around Muamba's story. Coyle has been at pains to stress the importance of looking at this from a dispassionate medical stance. The fact Muamba is still alive is remarkable, but we shouldn't get too carried away with ideas that this is a miracle which will see him spring from his bed and dribble a ball into the street. This isn't Roy of the Rovers.

Davies was questioned on whether the quarter-final against Spurs would be replayed. Like we'd slipped back into the idea that the world is just one big league title; 'Kevin, big game for Life on Saturday, can we expect Football to hit back and regain top spot soon?'. Davies, quite rightly, but more importantly, quite normally, disassociated the football talk as irrelevant. One of his mate's has been taken ill, and before he does anything else, he wants him to recover.

The frequency with which the minute's silence is now observed, and now the almost limitless range of VBTs to inlude QBTs (Quite Bad Things) and NVBTs (Not Very Bad Things) that it is apparently appropriate to observe it masks that this, above all, was a triumph of medical science. By all means wish him well and hope for a speedy recovery, but don't applaud Fabrice Muamba, save the NHS.

The curious case of Asa Hall

When Chris Wilder signs two players from the same club - Adam Chapman and Shane Killock, wee Stevie Kinninburgh and wee Ross Perry - the first things you think is; 'who does he want and who's carrying the bags?'.

When Wilder signed Simon Heslop and Asa Hall in 2010 there was a similar feeling. Nearly two years later, it's still difficult to know which is which.

Signed almost immediately after promotion, it's conceivable that the duo would have joined whichever division we were in. Their signing was entirely consistent with Wilder's acquisition strategy in the Conference - mopping up the best available from failing Conference sides (Jack Midson, Ryan Clarke, Mark Creighton, Damian Batt, Simon Clist et al).

Heslop made an early impression in a 'Gerrard' role; bombing forward and pitching in with some spectacular goals. Hall's contribution was less obvious. With Dannie Bulman leaving and Simon Clist sidelined through injury, things weren't quite firing on all cylinders. Wilder continued to mix his midfield pot throughout the season and the duo drifted into the margins. However, where others found themselves ejected on loan and beyond, Heslop and Hall periodically returned throughout the campaign.

Without making midfielders sound like one dimensional Spice Girls, Wilder's preferred three man midfield works best when you've got The Tackling One (Bulman), The Creative One (Murray) and The One Who Does the Housework (Clist). A two-man midfield is more like a bachelor pad - one gets the beers in (Whing, perhaps), one pulls the chicks (Leven) - nobody clears up the pizza boxes and cans of lager.

Hall does none of these, he's not particularly ferocious in the tackle and seems too gangly and untidy to be a creative drive or housemaid. However, Chris Wilder has persevered and he's hit a rich vein of form with fine goals against both Swindon and, again, on Saturday against Rotherham.

Wilder said after the Swindon game that there was a lot more to come from Hall, but he's not known for his patience with players. What is it that Wilder sees in Asa Hall?

Gothic synth monsters Depeche Mode were never going to have a standard vocals, guitar, bass and drums line-up. At their mid-90s peak their 'team' dynamic consisted of Dave Gahan (vocals), Martin Gore (songwriter), Alan Wilder (musician) and Andy Fletcher. Fletch was in all the videos, band pictures, and appeared on stage. When their rock-myth was most rampant he was attributed with playing 'bass synth', as if such a thing existed. As the fan base matured and their own lives mellowed, the veil was allowed to fall; it became clear that Fletch was, effectively, the band's accountant. In short, his role wasn't to add any rock-god musical magic, but to provide a stable base that secured the band long term.

Asa Hall is apparently good friends with James Constable. Constable comes across as an intelligent guy who benefits from having a stable background of family and friends he can rely on. If Constable is drawn to people like himself, then Hall's success can be explained simply by the fact he's a good guy to have about the place.

Very late in Saturday's game, as Rotherham prepared one last assault to try and grab an undeserved point, Michael Duberry and Adam Chapman engaged in an agitated argument about who was picking up their extra players. Neither would back down - Chapman, an ebullient character despite his age, was adamant that players needed picking up, Duberry, similarly dominant, waved him away aggressively. Neither would back down. If you add people like Peter Leven, Andy Whing and James Constable it is clear that as the squad improves, the characters become stronger. With this comes greater risk of it destabilising through its own forceful personality. Hall's role becomes more essential because he is there to be do whatever is needed and improve his team and surroundings. With Leven and Chapman at his side, Hall's apparent anonymity and quiet improvement becomes their key to success.

That, or it's just his new haircut, of course.

An open letter to Swindon Town

Dear Swindon Town
Firstly, sorry for writing to you en masse like this but I feel it’s time we talked.

Let’s be honest, it’s been a good season for both of us. You are set to win the league and we are continuing our steady recovery from a decade of neglect with real potential for clinching a play-off spot. I guess we had hoped to be higher, but objectively, we’re pretty happy with where we are at the moment. Something you learn when you’re in the doldrums is to keep life in perspective. Who knows, this time next year we could both be in League 1? Wouldn’t that be nice?

Now, I don’t have a massive problem with you to be honest. For example, I quite like your manager. I don’t agree with his politics, but I’m assuming that he’s not actively ethnic cleansing anyone at the moment and a man is more complex than his ideological persuasion. He’s charismatic and funny. I like listening to his interviews. He plays a great villain with his sun glasses and histrionics and all that scarf waving.

I have to say, I feel uncomfortable addressing you as one, like you're all the same. You're not all bad. The Washbag, the Swindon blog, has got to be amongst the best on the web. It’s coverage of the derby was first class; intelligently partisan. You should read it, support it and encourage its progress.

And congratulations on Matt Ritchie, by the way. He’s clearly quite a good player. His performance at the Kassam was completely overshadowed by his assault on our ball boy, of course. But he was magnanimous enough to apologise after the final whistle and it was all a bit in the heat of the moment.

We’re pleased to have kept James Constable, he means a lot to us. Be honest, you wanted him. You don’t make three bids and spout lies and nonsense in the press, like your manager did, if you don't want a player. He didn’t want to go. Because if he wanted to go, he’d have gone. Footballers and clubs are very good at making deals happen if they want them to. And it didn’t happen. If you’re right, however, and Di Canio did pull out due to Constable's hesitation, you might want to ask why your manager is prepared to risk your club's money on whimsical big money bids. Believe me, that’s just not healthy; the man has a rampant ego, you might want to watch that. Please stop pretending that you didn’t want Constable and that he wanted to come. It’s just not doing you any good.

And while we’re at it, let’s just keep the Lee Holmes thing in perspective. This isn’t Mo Johnston breaching a century-old religious divide moving from Celtic to Rangers. We signed Lee briefly on loan. He did pretty well for us, including two lovely crosses for the goals in the derby. He has decided to come to you. Surely you don't believe that he's moved for anything other than business reasons. He might help you win the title but, you were already going to win that anyway. He hasn't moved to spite us, he’s moved so that he can gad around as a ‘title winner’ in May and, I suspect, because Southampton got a better financial deal out of your lot. So you're spending more money on a player you don't need. I don't know, perhaps you can afford it, but why are you stockpiling expensive players?

We’ll ignore Mehdi Kerrouche, whose move has been largely inconsequential. He didn’t really ‘do it’ for us, and I suspect he’ll now rot in the reserve for you. No gain there.

Now, let’s deal with one of those portentous phrases you keep using; ‘Forever in our shadow’. Am I right to assume this is some sort of analogy to illustrate how we’re supposedly cowering from your luminous glory? Let’s be honest, neither of us can really claim any great glory in our recent history. We enjoy our clubs and what they stand for, and we enjoy our successes when they happen. But your glories are not so bright as to cast a significant shadow over anyone.

Sorry, you’re just not that important. There's nothing for us to be jealous of. In two years time, no one will remember your League 2 title. I’m sorry, they won’t. Don’t get me wrong, I would love for us to win a title, that will be very important to me and my club. But I don't expect it to cast a shadow over anyone else, including you. And just because we're not winning the title doesn’t mean I'm bothered that you are. Your self importance is a bit bewildering and somewhat overstated. You just don’t cast a shadow over us, or anyone (nor do we, but then we don't claim to). I go to games all the time and, honestly, nobody is talking about you. We're too busy talking about us. Which is just how it should be.

And then there’s this whole ‘our cup final’ thing about the actual derby games. It seems to me that you make a a lot of noise about everything to do with Oxford and Swindon except the actual games. I guess that’s because we won both of them this season. It’s still quite odd that you don’t seem to even acknowledge them. I have to say I enjoyed the games immensely this year, particularly the home game, which was epic in every sense from the setting to the nature of our win. And, of course, you played your part magnificently. You surely have to recognise that it was dramatic, even though the result wasn’t one you were looking for.

And what about your claims around our imminent financial meltdown? Where has that come from? Your insults would have more resonance if they had some credibility, perhaps some wit. Instead, you guess and lie and believe stuff that satisfies this odd fantasy that you've created in your head. It makes you a bit daft.

You see, Swindon Town, my problem is that we’ve played our games and we’ve moved on. The more you badger on about signing Lee Holmes, or your youth team victories, or beating Dagenham or the fact you’re top of the league, or the shadow you cast, or that you have four stands or the way you put #oufc in your tweets about things which are only vaguely related to us, leads me to but one thought.

I don’t care.

Really, I don’t care.

Seasons are better when we’re together; we’re good for each other because it gives us something to look forward to. Big games are really fun, much better than run-of-the-mill games against anyone else. But the excitement, our rivalry, is about the games. Nothing else. I don’t care about your grandstanding, I don’t care about your league position, I don’t care about your decidedly average achievements, I don’t care about your players, even if they’ve played for us in the past. I have children and a job and a house to renovate, and a blog to write. I don't really have much time to care about you. I just don't. And yet, there you are, going on and on and on about how wonderful you are. Your not going to convince me, and if I'm not listening, then you're talking to yourself. That way madness lies.

I do think your manager is funny, he makes me laugh and I think he's actually added to the drama this year. I’m pretty sure that he doesn’t have the mental stability, loyalty or ability to take you much beyond where you are. But he’s done well and he’s your problem.

You're going for the title, we're going for the play-offs. We have different objectives. Your only influence on us now is if you take points off teams around us. If you beat them, which I’m sure you want to, then we’d be very grateful. Perhaps you’ll deliberately lose to them to spite us, but that would be silly. Then again, given that the rivalry appears to centre on everything else BUT the actual games we play against each other, perhaps you will.

Your obsession with us is worrying, you might need help. Is your team not enough for you? Really, we’re flattered by your attention, it’s sweet, but it's getting a little creepy. You expend so much energy talking about us, I'm beginning to think, well, you really love us. If you didn't like us, you'd go and do something else, but you don't. I do suggest you find a hobby or something to fill up the time you currently spend thinking about us, because you're lovely, but you're not really my type, thanks.

So, turn around, walk away. Enjoy your season and your club. Clubs like ours don't enjoy success very often, so you should savour it while you can. I'm sure we'll meet again, and we can renew the argument about who is best on the pitch. In the meantime, I hope you're happy in all you do.

Lots of love
Oxblogger

Still going up?

After the derby last week I walked the children into town to spend their World Book Day vouchers. The adrenaline was still pumping, my brain still processing the sights, sounds and experiences of the last few hours. The weather was spring-like with a slight chill cutting through the warm sun. People around me were getting on with their normal Saturday afternoons. It was a quiet weekend in an Oxfordshire market town.

It reminded me of Cup Finals during my childhood. It was the only domestic club game shown live on TV. The television would go on at 8am for a cup final themed Swap Shop or Saturday Superstore, then we'd flick between Grandstand on BBC and World of Sport on ITV, depending the celebrity-strewn line-up each was offering. There were things that I thought were unique to the Cup Final - hotels, team coaches, suits, the ritualistic inspection of the pitch, flags - nobody had flags at games unless it was the Cup Final. I remember the 1984 Cup Final coverage opening with shots of Andy Gray and Mick Lyons, topless, hanging out of their hotels smiling and laughing. I realise now that there were probably hookers, lager and cigarettes just out of shot. But for me, this was a simple football celebration.

The game would happen - and then my mum would turf me out into the street. I was full of fizzy pop and sugar and hydrogenated fats, exhausted from my sedentary day, overloaded with the noise and epicness of the coverage. there would be an early evening chill in the air, and a quiet void as my head span. I loved Cup Finals.

'Our Cup Final' The withering solipsism of the moronic Swindon fringe. If a cup final is a big game you're desperate to win, then yes, indeed last Saturday had all the hallmarks of a cup final. It isn't our only focus or necessarily our biggest game, it seems that in modern football not winning is actually cooler than winning. Teams forgo winning 'cups', or in this case, derbies, for apparently bigger prizes (5th place in the Premier League or the vague hope of group elimination in the Champions League). Some Swindon fans appear to have dismissed last week's derby because their focus is the league. Last time I looked, winning games was integral to winning leagues. If their focus is the title, I still can't quite fathom how losing to Oxford helped their chances. Still, if they wish to by-pass the fun of actually playing in big games to attain a position within the League they're barely able to attain, and incapable of sustaining, then so be it.

Ian Lenegan's post-match interview against Swindon talked of gentle, sustainable growth, with the aim of reaching the Championship. Beating Swindon isn't the reason for his investment; but he'll enjoy the journey as much as the ultimate destination. And so should we. And so should they.

But the reasons that made last Saturday so special - triumph in the face of significant on-pitch adversity - was likely to bite us on the arse eventually. Unlike most 'cup finals' there is no recovery period afterwards, and so no rest-bite to our injury crisis. Perhaps Tuesday's excellent draw with Shrewsbury was the benefit of momentum but Saturday was a game too far. Perhaps we've forgotten that we're still playing with a patched up team. 'Struggling' Bradford have not lost at home since November, and so despite their supposed lowly position, it was never going to be a push over.

Our own form is both good and bad, depending on predisposition. Miserablists will look at four wins in 12 during 2012 and too many draws. Chirpy-heads will look at two defeats in the same time and nearly 4 months without an away defeat up until Saturday. The reality is that we are 16 points ahead of where we were this time last year and we've been sitting in the play-off places for some weeks. Teams in a similar position, of which there a few, are similarly undulating. Swindon are in a stellar run, which is a reference point that doesn't help the doomongers finding 'proof' of our supposed failings. In reality, their existence is really only relevant during the 180 minutes the clubs spend in each others' company. Although perhaps not for the Swindon tweeter who last week tweeted their youth team victory over United with the hashtag #priderestored. Ah, bless.

Two years ago we'd just been beaten by Hayes and Yeading at home, now we're in the League 2 play-off places 16 points better off than we were last year. We have a decent chance at the play-offs and should we make it, will be able to go into it relaxed in the knowledge that whatever is achieved is on an upward trajectory (even if Swindon do end up as champions, it still be lower than they were last year and a third year of decline). The knowledge we can beat the best in the division home and away, should offer some confidence that we can go up this season, even if it is by a narrower margin than we would hope. Promotion would be a lot of fun, and this season has already delivered two truly memorable chunks of fun already. If we don't get promotion, that doesn't mean we're failing. Going up, however, will need people to keep some perspective in the coming weeks.

Why we should welcome Adam Chapman

Adam Chapman returned to the starting line-up for last night's 2-2 draw with Shrewsbury following an impressive display against Swindon. Some will say that he should never have been given the opportunity. I think they're wrong.

For an insight into professional sport you could do a lot worse than reading David Millar’s Riding through the Dark. Millar is perhaps the most naturally gifted cyclist this country has produced in a generation. Developed almost completely outside the gold medal factory run by Dave Brailsford at British Cycling, Millar rose from local racing amateur to world time-trial champion.

In the process he evolved from wide-eyed romantic to cynical professional. Eventually, he was busted for doping in 2004, served a 2 year ban, but has since returned to become a leading voice in the fight against drugs in sport.

His drug taking wasn’t ‘evil’ or cheating a system, as he saw it at the time. It was widely sanctioned and accepted within his sport. He was fulfilling an obligation to sponsors, team owners, the media, race organisers and even fans. If he was seen failing, or not competing because of tiredness or injury, then he wasn’t fulfilling his professional obligation. He could sustain his performances with drugs and because everyone else was doing it too, it was just all part of the business they don't call 'show'.

This, he now realises, is a pointless and facile crusade. As much as people want to watch and enjoy sport, they don’t want to be thinking about the drugs that are making it happen. If the Corinthian spirit isn’t in some way evident, sport is a waste of time. We want to see people struggling to achieve, achieving without struggle is boring.

But professional sport, he says, does not do rehabilitation. It’s a world in which coming second is considered first loser, it has no mechanism for helping people recover from failure or triumph over adversity; whether than be illness or injury, cheating, or in Adam Chapman’s case, killing a man.

If sport has a compelling narrative it is triumph over adversity. That is why Manchester City and Chelsea are so utterly tedious; they’ve bypassed adversity with their money. Conversely; Lance Armstrong would have been forgotten had he been a Texan gobshite who got cancer and just died without winning 7 Tour de France titles. Both sides of the struggle/success equation are needed in order to make sport worthwhile.

Oxford should be applauded for keeping Adam Chapman on the books and accepting him back into the club following his release from jail. This isn’t a hero’s welcome, although inevitably some will treat it as such; there is no heroism in what he’s done. However, it gives him a platform to rehabilitate. After the Swindon win, Kelvin Thomas talked about Chapman as 'looking like a man out there'. Which is the whole point of rehabilitation. Time will tell, but there are good signs that he's grown up and come back a more mature professional.

It will be interesting to see if Michael Duberry has any influence over Chapman as someone else who has triumphed over adversity. Another rehabilitated yellow; Billy Turley, provided essential support for him in the run up to his trial. If Chapman comes back, does well and goes on to have a great career, he has not 'got away with' what he’s done, he has shown people a path that many don’t believe is there. Without rehabilitation the only route available is a desceding loop of crime which narrows what is considered to be achievable. The club’s support of Chapman allows a story of redemption to play itself out, and that’s got to be better than throwing him on the slag heap.

7 step guide to winning a derby

There have been better performances and bigger results, but has there ever been a better story behind a game of football involving Oxford United?

Your dad will tell you stories of past games involving mythical beasts and feats of derring-do. You'll listen in awe when you're young, but as you get older, you'll begin to question how close to the facts the story actually is.

Saturday's game is the story you tell your children and grandchildren. And you won't have to make up a word of it.

But how, playing the best team in the league, in the richest vein of form in their history, with a team stripped of most of our best players, did we actually win on Saturday? Here's Oxblogger's 7 step guide to our derby victory.

Fascism
Paolo is a fascist. Fact. A cheap shot?

No, fascism is an ideology promoting unity through hard work and intolerance of non-compliance. Di Canio's leadership philosophy inevitably draws on his deep-seated principles. After our win at the County Ground he admitted an admirable need to learn from the experience. His public spat with Leon Clarke earlier in the season resulted from Clarke's reluctance to put in the work Di Canio demanded. Work and continuous improvement are basic principles of fascism. You won't get many fans resisting calls for unity and hard work from their manager; you don't have to be a fascist to be intoxicated by that dogma if you find success.

However, extreme ideologies assume stability, they promote a single path to a single destination. They assume unquestionably, that the path and destination are pre-determined. Their intolerant response to uncertainty is to reinstate the ideology through force, that is plan B. Compliance can justifiably be achieved through violence, if you're a fascist. When violence isn't an option, and things change, there isn't a plan B.

As we will see, things changed a lot during the build up to, and the course of, the derby.

Swindon's form
A lot was made of Swindon's 10-game winning streak; a club record. Logically, this put them into a strong position going into Saturday's game. But they'd never been in that position before, no manager in their history had been in that position before. The longer any record breaking run goes on the more likely it is to end. Each game brings new pressures that have never been experienced, by anyone, before.

The opposition's attitude changes, complacency creeps in, tiredness, mental fatigue. As the challenges get more complicated the central tenet of Di Canio's ideology, hard work, is not the only solution. The last thing you need during a record run is a rabid derby atmosphere introducing more variables. At their peak when they were apparently at their strongest, Swindon were increasingly vulnerable.

Peter Leven's injury
Peter Leven has become a focal point of a lot of what we do. He's in a goal of the season competition, he trends on Twitter, he takes all our set pieces, he's a creative spark. Other players look to him, the fans look to him.

The early announcement of his injury last week served to change expectations; we wouldn't win the game playing the Leven way because he wouldn't be there. Without Leven, nobody knew how we'd beat Swindon. Some believed we couldn't win. Di Canio; whose strengths of motivation through application, requires a stable environment, didn't know either. Paradoxically, Leven's injury played into Chris Wilder's hands.

Jake Wright's injury
After the Leven announcement, Jake Wright's injury flew under the radar. Wright's leadership skills are without parallel at Oxford. You rarely see a player so in control of his team. However, he also likes to play football, some of his passing along the back line is hair raising.

Wright's injury allowed Whing to slot into the back-four. That changed the dynamic considerably. Whing is a no-nonsense fighter, he and Duberry set a different tone that spread throughout the team. Anthony Tonkin, lackadaisical in the Conference, suddenly became a ferocious pitbull. The back-four weren't going to play football, they were going to block and clear their lines. The Oxford that we've been watching all season, was not the Oxford that appeared on Saturday.

Swindon fans
They may claim otherwise, but this was a big game. For many of us, our only interaction with the police is getting frustrated when they get stuck in the Tesco self-scan aisle buying a mid-shift chocolate bar. The neutralised zone built around the away end and coach loads of Swindon fans being escorted by a phalanx of police horses fed a frenzied atmosphere. We know that elements of both sides stepped beyond the mark; but overall, it was a fantastic spectacle.

They've got the LDV Autowindscreen Simod Cup Final and the prospect of the title. You can argue until you're blue in the face as to which is most important. But, they won't have a bigger, or more rarefied league game all year. This wasn't conclusive proof that we are best; it was just another chapter in a saga.

In the same way that Celtic need a strong Rangers to thrive, Swindon and Oxford benefit from each others' presence. The derby has defined our season both on and off the pitch. It was only because it was Swindon that things turned out like they did. 

James Constable's sending off
Constable's profile within this fixture had grown some way beyond what he (or anyone) could influence on the pitch. Everyone interprets things beyond what they see. Constable's challenge on Devera was not malicious, it was barely worthy of a yellow card. The referee interpreted the reaction of the Swindon fans, players and the fact it was Constable to conclude that this was an aggressive action from a player who'd been affected by the pressure that surrounded him. Had it been any other player on the pitch, they wouldn't have been sent off.

Constable's departure left Rendell up front on his own. All he had to do was hold the ball when it came to him, he did it magnificently. My man of the match. Di Canio had put so much emphasis on Constable, when he was no longer there, Swindon struggled to know who to worry about. We became a multi-headed beast for about five minutes. Johnson, Holmes and Asa Hall weren't in Di Canio's play book. Oxford, fierce local rivals playing in front of a massive partisan home crowd, were playing like an away team with players Di Canio had never seen before.

He didn't react, he panicked. The situation was different to the one he'd planned. He substituted Cibocchi for Smith, and then Smith for Cox. They kept playing deep balls to the back post in the first half and passed and passed and passed to no great effect in the second. Had we gone at them, they may have picked us off. Had things gone through Leven and Constable, they'd have stifled that because it was too obvious. If we'd played the way we want to play, it wouldn't have been as effective and the crowd would have got frustrated. As the situation changed, Chris Wilder was the one who reacted and the fans recognised the role they had to play. Wembley taught us that victory comes from patience.

Oxford United
Stripped of Wright and Leven plus Davis and Potter. Down to ten men through the loss of our talismanic striker after 10 minutes. With our match winning goalkeeper suffering cramp throughout the second half. Playing the league leaders on a 10 game winning streak in a local derby. The prospect of a draw, let alone a win, was distant to say the least.

They say that you can judge a team by its strength on the substitute's bench - of the 10 players on the pitch; seven wouldn't have been in the team had we played at Christmas. 3 wouldn't have been in the team on Friday. You don't throw those players together in that environment against that side and accidentally beat them.

This was the victory of a deep, cohesive and motivated squad, moulded by Wilder and funded by Thomas, who has created an off-the-pitch set up dedicated to winning games (yes, I mean you East Stand ball boys).

Di Canio's Swindon is a good side, the best technical side we've faced. They weren't as effective or efficient as Cheltenham, but they're still likely champions. However, they are built on a simplistic utilitarian ideology that was exposed on Saturday lunch time because the world is not simple and things change. Yes, we won the derby, yes, we won the double. But more than both of those we demonstrated emphatically what the new Oxford United philosophy is about.

30 years of the Swindon derby - part 5

The first ever FA Cup tie between the sides was shown live on TV. The BBC, constrained by their contract to show games from the early rounds, seemed shocked to discover a game that had purpose and meaning.

The ground was full and noisey, into the cauldron of hate entered an insane warrior with a maniacal look on his face, the tension that had hung over the fixture exploded, spitting its venom across the stadium. Weeks of malice, weeks of fans exchanging abuse, and now this. He sprinted unabated at the Swindon fans shaking his fists? A man hiding behind an allegiance to a football club, kissing the badge on his shirt, hollering his manic ramblings through his beak.

Ronny the rocking Robin was Swindon’s mascot; a six foot three inch robin sprinting around, sliding on his knees, banging on advertising hoardings and leading the away fans’ singing. Quite frankly, he pissed all over Ollie the Ox.

You've got to give them their victories when they deserve them, I suppose.

Three years earlier I’d stood on the terraces at the Manor with chest pains as we narrowly avoided relegation. A year later we shipped 100 goals, were relegated by April and I was shrouded with a simple gloom. I'd been feeding my habit with an evermore dirty, diluted drug. Each time I used it I hoped for one of those old buzzes, each time I was left sullied and unfulfilled.

Ten minutes before  kick-off the air was filled with Two Tribes by Frankie Goes To Hollywood, it was ear splitting. Then they put on some Euro pop and the stadium began to jump, the whole place began to sing, and wave, and dance. The stand shuddered under my feet. That used to happen at the Manor, but that was because it was about to fall down, this was because there was a wall of noise enveloping the whole stadium.

A lump came to my throat.

I'd watched Oxford since I was three, seen them at Wembley, seen them beat Arsenal, Manchester United and Chelsea but in the last four years I'd watched the club die under the weight of crippling debt and piss poor karma. I stood on the terraces seeing the sands of the club's life slip through my fingers. Then, suddenly, it woke up again, and I had no idea how much it meant to me.

We hadn't even kicked off.

We played like an away side, absorbing pressure – although we were top of Division 4 at the time, Swindon were flying high in Division 3. At half time Mark Lawrenson urged Oxford to show some ambition. The game was there for the taking.

We didn’t. Ian Atkins’ teams didn’t do that. We played for territory in the hope that the platform of a set piece might offer an opportunity. Just after the hour mark Scott McNiven lobbed a throw into the box which was flicked on by Jefferson Louis. Steve Basham ghosted across the six yard line, but failed to make contact, the inadvertent feint deceived the Swindon keeper and the ball bounced gently into the bottom left hand corner.

We’d secured another famous win. There was delirium. The 3rd Round draw plucked out an away tie at Arsenal. The team showed their decorum with Louis jumping butt naked through the Oxford dressing room. Characteristically, Atkins responded to the draw with something like ‘I feel like a 5-4-1 coming on’. A joke for the football tactics nerds, which says it all really.

I thought this was the beginning of the big revival. Firoz Kassam had actually got it right. He’d taken a lot of flack getting there, but I began to think that perhaps he was deserving of his success.

But, once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic, it proved a mere moment of sobriety before the grip of our disease tightened once again. The derby was once again packed away, this time for nearly a decade, the longest of hiatus of them all. We headed off to the wilderness, they were stuck in lower-league meaningless.

In 2011 the rivalry roared back, stronger than ever. The parallels with 1996 are evident, both sides entered the season with aspirations of promotion and we had another toy to squabble over. For Beauchamp read James Constable, who Swindon relentlessly, and unsuccessfully, pursued. We won at the County Ground – but I’ve done that to death already.

Which takes us up to Saturday. Over the last 17 years – since the tumult of the 1995/6 promotion season - Oxford have edged the head to head results, whereas Swindon have enjoyed  more overall success, which is not saying much. Which is more important depends on your viewpoint, of course. For me, a derby is all about the head to head, but I would say that.

The derby is in rude health; both sides are on an upward curve and we’ve had a jolly good squabble over James Constable, which will surely be a focal point of Saturday’s fixture. We’re losing key players hand over fist and Paolo DiCanio offers an angle to the disinterested media. It augers well for an absolute ripsnorter.

30 years of the Swindon derby - part 4

After the turbulence surrounding Joey Beauchamp’s movement between the two clubs and the 1995/6 promotion race, the derby settled into an era of stability.

There was new spice injected into the fixture, helped by Beauchamp’s ever presence in the Oxford team over that period, but it wasn't a shadow of what had gone before.

Between 1996 and 2000 each of the next 7 meetings ended in home wins. It was like the sports/entertainment hybrids of 6 day track cycling or WWE wrestling where a feisty and exciting affair always concluded with a win for the local favourite.

Although the outcomes were becoming predictable, the sequence cemented both sides’ perception of Beauchamp and therefore each other. Most Oxford fans watched him on the winning side; most Swindon fans watched him on the losing side. Was Beauchamp a winner or a loser? From the evidence in front of them, the views of both sets of fans were right.

Neither side were good enough to go up nor bad enough to go down, but behind the scenes, Oxford were beginning to fall apart. Like an alcoholic who starts drinking in the pub and then on his own, and then, almost without realising, he’s suddenly downing a skin full of whiskey for breakfast.

The sequence of home wins was broken in 2001 in what was a wretched season. We'd lost at the County Ground in a game which was a complete shambles – illustrated most famously by Guy Whittingham’s one and only goal scoring appearance for Oxford. Five months later Swindon came to the Manor and took all 3 points back to Wiltshire. Not that we cared too much. By this point we were lying in a pool of our own vomit with piss stains on our trousers. Winning derbies, playing any kind of football, was a meaningless aside.

A fresh start – and a move to the Kassam Stadium – saw little improvement. The anticipated surging return never came. Firoz Kassam scrabbled to arrest the slide and happened upon Ian Atkins, who was able to administer cold dose of reality that seemed to straighten us up.

The move had instant impact and by 2002 we were challenging for promotion again. It wasn’t pretty, but it was effective. It was the perfect time to renew our acquaintance with those from Down-the-really-tedious-and-impossible-to-overtake-A-road-to-hell.

Next... the end.