As a bit of an introvert, the idea of something being ‘after the Lord Mayor’s Show’ sounds great. The Lord Mayor’s Show probably involves meeting a Lord Mayor, which would be awful, I’d need to dress up in something fancy and be endlessly polite. I would crave, above everything, for it to be after the Lord Mayor’s Show.

After the razzamatazz of Norwich came the inevitable lull of Peterborough in the League Cup. Despite a notable lack of flamethrowers or indeed fans, far from being a cold shower, it may be further evidence we’re more prepared for the coming season than many believe.

Saturday was a high, the club were re-running clips of the goals and fans were retweeting every morsel of external praise well into Tuesday afternoon, for many Peterborough was an after-thought.

In some ways, the game reminded me of 2017 when Pep Clotet had come on board. An exotic appointment promising something new and exciting, he brought in a host of intriguiging signings including Brazilian Ricardinho, ex-Spurs striker Jonathan Obika and ex-Barcelona midfielder Xemi Fernandez. 

On a wave of enthusiasm, we beat Oldham in the opening game of the season before cruising into a League Cup tie against Cheltenham, who’d narrowly avoided relegation to the Conference the previous year. After the promise of the opening day, most Oxford fans expected a thrilling evening of attacking continental style football.

What resulted was a chaotic mess, 3-1 up at half-time having conceded first, we conspired to throw the game away, losing 4-3 in extra-time. At the time we wrote it off as growing pains, in fact it was a sign of an impending identity crisis. 

After the positivity of Saturday, would another run out against Peterborough as to our future? 

Whether the Norwich result turns out to be an outlying datapoint in a season of struggle remains to be seen and Peterborough in the League Cup confirms little, but it did show that the club appear more ready for this than some have predicted.

There were plenty of raised eyebrows at the team selection on Saturday with nine starters from the Wembley line-up. The rationale was much clearer when the line-up was announced for Tuesday. Rather than blood a wave of new signings in a clearly rarified atmosphere against Norwich, risking instant stigmatism had it gone wrong, Buckingham opted for a subtler, more measured approach by introducing our new faces in a risk-free environment in front less than 4,000 fans.

It was a wise move, there was no need to speed date our way into a fully integrated, fluid unit against Norwich when one already existed in the team that won at Wembley. Buckingham wisely opted to use Peterborough as a testing ground; a post-pre-season friendly, if you like.

Going deep into the League Cup this year won’t define our season; but as Jerome Sale said on The Dub, it might prove a useful enabler in allowing Buckingham a few extra games to merge the old with the new. Developing new players, partnerships and systems until they become one cohesive squad.

Jerome has alluded to the fact the club may be more ready than the fans, and it may take a while to get used to the idea that we don’t have a starting eleven but a whole squad capable of competing for a starting place. 

This was a weakened team only in the sense that it was untested as a unit; in terms of experience and raw ability it was anything but. 

By contrast, Peterborough look beaten both spiritually and physically. Their last promotion in 2020/21 was fuelled by a perceived injustice about how the covid truncated season had been concluded to their disadvantage. There seems to be little rage this time around even with the prospect of exacting some kind of revenge for their play-off defeat last season.

While the fight may have gone, some things don’t change, Darren Ferguson’s dedication to playing from the back in the most disjointed, uncomfortable way possible was on show after just twenty minutes. Keeper Nicholas Bilokapic couldn’t access the muscle memory to launch a back pass into the stands, allowing Tyler Goodrham to tap home for the opening goal. It wasn’t quite the comedic genius of Josh Murphy’s goal in the league last season, but it’s good to see Ferguson sticking to his principles.

Ferguson’s attempt at perfecting no-touch football was evident twenty minutes later as Goodrham, Sibley and Rodrigues waltzed their way into the Peterborough box unchallenged to set up Matt Phillips for number two.

It was over by half-time; they were never going to mount a stirring comeback while the main motivation for us would have been the opportunity for a few players to make a claim for starting on Friday against Coventry.

I suspect changes will come gradually and Buckingham will have anticipated the challenge of leaving good players on the sidelines. The last two results may not define our whole season, but they have given the manager licence to think and evolve the squad rather than grasp for solutions in the midst of a crisis.

That sense of being in control is strangely unfamiliar; we have spent nearly three decades living with the feeling that we’re under-performing, even when the good times have come, they’ve been fleeting and full of joyous angst. For once, we seem to be approaching our success with an assured sense of calm.