The BBC’s Moment of Truth podcast, the immersive documentary following Oxford United and Rotherham in the closing weeks of last season, reveals a lot about how football managers work.

Both Karl Robinson and Paul Warne come across as thoughtful, vulnerable people, quite a contrast to the ‘man’s game’ Graeme Souness loves so much. Much more interesting than Antonio Conte and Thomas Tuchel going ‘at it’ with an eyeballs-out thumb war. 

The series is not without its David Brent moments. Warne’s approach to player engagement involves posing a question, answering it himself and then asking if the player agrees. Even when the players try to answer, Warne talks over them, gives them the answer he wants to hear and then dismisses them like they’ve been giving each other wet willies in the showers after a PE lesson. 

Beyond a few Churchillian team talks, you get less player interaction with Robinson, there’s one after the game against Sunderland where he muddles his motivation with his admin, screaming at the players to “LOOK EACH OTHER IN THE EYE, DO NOT LET ELEVEN MONTHS OF HARD WORK GO, NOW PLEASE GET DRESSED.” At one point he rejects a hotel because he says it’s haunted. 

The more candid moments are interesting; he admits he can handle losing better than he can winning. While others celebrate, winning, for him it’s a personal relief because he hasn’t let anyone down. Warne agrees, at least when you lose you can share the same frustration and dejection as others. Losing is more inclusive, winning is isolating when you’re a manager. 

Occasionally he slips into a familiar habit creating a world that doesn’t really exist, just to give himself something push against. One of his recent ones has been saying that people accuse the players of not caring or trying. Not caring is a recurring theme, he’s often at pains to stress how much everyone cares.

Fans have lots of questions about tactics and recruitment, but I’ve not seen anyone accuse the players of not caring or trying. On the contrary, I don’t think there’s a player who the fans don’t like at some level, it’s hard to remember a squad as well liked as the ones Robinson has overseen. He creates the narrative to give him a springboard.

Robinson is a counterpuncher; he needs to be under pressure and have something to fight against. He’s been in that position throughout his managerial career; MK Dons are the most disliked club in the country and he took great pleasure in battling the vitriol that came with that, at Charlton he was in the middle of an internecine war between fans and owners. At Oxford he’s got none of that, everyone likes each other. Robinson admits that he’s never worked with a nicer group of people, Kyle Joseph said yesterday that he’s never felt more welcome at a club. It’s almost that Robinson needs these little conflicts to fire things up, perhaps we all do.

He’s at the right club, it’s nearly forty years since we won a title, conquering all before us. Our successes ever since have mostly been comebacks, dragging ourselves over the line in the face of great challenge. It’s an Oxford tradition.

Yesterday’s first half against Morecambe was probably as bad a game as we’ve seen since Robinson arrived. Brinyhoof said for the first time in a long time that it really felt like lower league football. That’s true, I often marvel at the fact the game we see now is the same level as the one Roy Burton played at when he looked like a middle-aged pub landlord. Burton wouldn’t have looked out of place yesterday.

The game was devoid of any quality, pace or technique. There was effort, but almost no product. Kyle Joseph looked enthusiastic and pacey – Robinson praised him for ‘running around’ – but at the same time he didn’t seem to touch the ball. Again, Marcus McGuane was the standout player, you never feel Ciaron Brown will phone it in, but at half-time, if there was any applause, it was for effort not quality.

Second half, like against Lincoln, was better despite the sinking inevitability of going a goal down. By that point, there were no boos, just an eery silence. It felt like we’d hit the bottom, a sinking ship gently plonking itself on the seabed in a plume of sand. Then we rallied well, Joseph got the goal his efforts deserved and we dragged our way back into it despite lacking any pace and very little penetration.

Robinson was more coherent after the game, the accusations of flakiness in the squad are over-stated, we’ve had a run of bad luck and bad results and we need to roll up our sleeves and work our way through it. He’s got his angle, now he can counter-attack, it’s a more comfortable place for him to be than being a front runner with all the expectation that comes with it.  

I’d gone into this season thinking we needed to find the seven points we need to close last season’s gap between us and the play-offs. I’d kind of overlooked the other 76 that we need to accumulate first. Like a snooker player thinking about potting the last black before they’ve potted their first red. Maybe I’m alone, but I’m not sure I am. 

I’m not suggesting that Robinson has engineered this position, but it does seem to be a more comfortable one for him. It shares the anxiety; creates the tension he needs to motivate his players and even the fans. Through the fog of frustration, there are signs of improvement, against Lincoln there were chances of taking a point despite the first half, yesterday the first half was a non-event, but in the second half we could, perhaps should, have won it.

We can argue that we should be beating teams like Lincoln and Morecambe, but maybe we need to recalibrate a little, we’re not going to run away with the league, we have no right to be successful, we need to find a route back to where we want to be. Yesterday was pretty terrible, but at least it was something.