New Year is supposed to be an opportunity for renewal; every social media affirmation discards the negative of the year just gone and declares that it’ll all be fixed in the year to come.

It’s all part of our endless and ultimately futile quest to find purpose and patterns in our lives. We’re the only species who do this; my cat doesn’t seek purpose when she sits at her bowl with her back to me, ignoring my existence. She just waits for food, eats it and finds a radiator to lie on. 

Seeking purpose is a perilous thing to do, the purpose of Oxford United’s squad was to win promotion or at least to represent the club with pride. A towering presence in both the division and our history. Over the last few weeks it’s been more like a Jenga tower, with each injury removing another brick until the whole thing comes tumbling down. No longer a tower, just a pile of individual bricks.

How many blocks need to be pulled before we collapse? We were already looking shaky before Jordan Thornily and Tyler Goodrham were announced as unfit to play against Charlton. The Oxford Mail tweeted an image of our likely formation; with Goodrham’s absence and Mills on the bench we had no wingers. The team was like the knight in Monty Python’s The Holy Grail who repeatedly takes near fatal blows whilst feigning the idea that he is somehow still a viable fighting force.

How many players can we lose before we’re just a selection of individuals in matching outfits, standing in a field drifting through life? With so few options, even Des Buckingham’s purpose was becoming obsolete. What decisions can he make when the formation is decided by necessity? 

We’ve had been in bad patches before, Chris Wilder seemed to relish this kind of thing; it played into his narrative of the world being against him. Karl Robinson spiralled out of control, speaking in tongues and making players joint captains. How would Buckingham respond? Does The City Group have a training module about what to do when everything dissolves into a sludgy mess?

Our ego also makes us unique, we have the ability to observe ourselves from the outside and concluding that we’re more important than we actually are. The collective Oxford United ego has us believe we’re uniquely unfortunate with our injuries. This obscured Charlton’s own woes, in particular the loss of top scorer Alfie May.

As for Michael Appleton’s response, you suspect the powerlessness paralyses him. He can’t rationalise his predicament and draw any meaningful conclusions because so much of what is wrong is out of his hands. He can only hope that normality will return and he’ll be able to get back on track.

This was the coming together of two clubs lost in the fog of their own ego, seeking to regain a purpose when maybe there wasn’t one. The atmosphere was sleepy, the half-empty stadium ghostly quiet – perhaps in the eerie silence we would pick up a feint signal of meaning or a slender thread of narrative. 

The answer seemed to present itself after just five minutes when Chem Campbell opened the scoring for Charlton. It was a shattering  blow leaving the debris of our remaining hope strewn across the pitch. Exposed by Derby as promotion charlatans, Appleton, the dreamer’s choice after Liam Manning’s departure, picked at our hollow carcass. 

Far from concede, Oxford began to wake, Moore and Brannagan agitated, sniping at each other, but unifying against our misfortune. The resurrection filtered from back to front, our demise slowed, then halted, then we began to resurrect, Beadle saved smartly, Brown blocked heroically. Emboldened, Finn Stevens and Joe Bennett fearlessly reclaimed territory down their flanks. 

After 22 minutes Rodrigues unleashed Stevens who centred to Mark Harris to convert the equaliser. Parched by his four month walkabout in the wilderness, he barely registered a reaction. Is that because he knows it’s only the first step in his personal resurrection? 

The lack of hubris seemed to breed a growing resolution. Cogito, ergo sum: I think, therefore I am. There is no greater force, no higher purpose; we exist because we exist. Our return to form requires us to start the process and take ownership of that journey. Stevens and Harris had combined to show the way, another had been chosen to complete the journey.

In the circumstances, we’d have taken a point so not to inflict further damage on our battered ego. But, you can build slow or you can build quick, you can trust the process or take a leap of faith and find a greater power within you. 

With five minutes to go, the ball was worked into the Charlton half, probing for a final opportunity. This wasn’t a time for data because rational analysis would have delivered the wrong answer.

Brannagan rolled the ball into the path of Oisin Smyth, a player who has has sat on the margins and was only drawn into the centre by the absence of others. His first league start since last April, Smyth looked up to find himself in a space he never expected to find. He looked up and saw expectation. He looked up and found hope.  

Dave Langan against Arsenal, Rob Hall against Swindon, Ryan Ledson against Charlton. Oxford United swept through Smythe as he unleashed his howitzer; he thought therefore he was. The ball flew towards goal, arcing, dipping, sweeping, threading a path through the despair, navigating beyond the melancholy. Beyond the reach of the Charlton keeper and into the net.

Looking for a narrative and a purpose, we found that all we ever need is hope.