The ball was placed at the corner of the penalty box where the foul had been committed. It might as well have been on the moon. What do you do with it? Any wider, and we could have crossed it, more central and it would have been worth a shot. Any further out and we could have just re-started the play, any further in and it would have been a penalty. 

But this, THIS? The foul on Tyler Goodrham seemed to have been perfectly placed in a zone of least opportunity. What do you do with this? Brandon Fleming stood over the ball dead-eyed, contemplating just dropping it into the box and letting others deal with it. In his peripheral vision he could see Cameron Brannagan arriving with an idea. 

On announcing his team to face Plymouth last night, Karl Robinson talked about ‘the system’. This is a common thread; before every game, there’s a system for which the ever-changing line-up is perfect for. During better times, the system isn’t discussed; the system is just the system, it’s embedded in the squad. Personnel changes are discussed in the context of injuries or fatigue, not systems. 

Back in 1985, after Oxford had beaten Leeds United 5-2 on Match of the Day, presenter Jimmy Hill’s summary of Jim Smith’s system was that he liked to get balls down the wings and crosses in the box. He praised a return to what he considered a more rational approach to the game.

It was true; on the dressing room wall Smith pinned signs which said things like ‘A good player does simple things and, when necessary, something extra’ and ‘Failure is not to shoot, not failure to score’. To summarise his entire philosophy in three words, one said; ‘Simplicity is genius’.

Robinson seems stuck in a swirling vortex of systems, trying new ones like a demented octogenarian randomly twisting a Rubik’s cube in the hope of solving its mystery. His players are on the margins, it’s not so much they don’t believe in what he’s asking them to do, it’s more that they barely seem to understand it. And when they do get a grasp, it changes.

While I don’t think relegation is as big a threat as some are suggesting – our bad run has mostly been against form sides and there are at least six other teams who have been abject this season – the objective of the season is to secure mid-table and not get sucked into trouble.

So rather than unearthing a revolutionary all-conquering new system, we need a shape we can stick to, improve and refine. Achieving that demands stability, focus and clear-headedness. Robinson’s thinking at the moment seems cluttered; his press interviews can be a jumble of words which often make more sense when written down and studied than listened to. We’ve seen him like this before, but despite him saying he’s been in worse situations, that’s only part of the equation – how many others been in situations like this before? For a few it will be brand new, Robinson may be verbalising his way to a solution, he may also be panicking or even demoralising others in the process.

Plymouth, despite being top, weren’t an obviously great side, but they had the confidence to be patient. If they persisted down the left channel, they knew they’d create chances, if it didn’t work first time, they tried again. Somehow we need a piece of that patience, Robinson may be in a hurry to solve the problems, but he needs to allow his players to think. 

And back to the free kick, what to do? Cameron Brannagan steps up, spies a gap and does what everyone least expects him to do – which happens also to be the most obvious thing – he shoots hard and true, wrong footing everyone in the process and beating the keeper. If there was anything that came out of last night, it was that sometimes doing simple things work best.