It started as an idea for a tweet. After Cameron Brannagan’s rocket against Millwall, the EFL official Twitter account sent a tweet with a video of the goal accompanied by the legend ‘Cameron Brannagan doesn’t score tap-ins’.

It’s one of those lazy social media football phrases that gets thrown out by corporate accounts when they can’t think of anything else to say. A bit like the club account tweeting ‘Work to do’ when we’re two-down at half-time every single weekend.

My deliberately contrary nature kicked in. Of course he scores tap-ins, I thought, even the greatest goalscorers score simple goals, it’s all part of the job. So, I thought, all I needed to do was find an obscure early Brannagan goal from years ago and counter the claim. Send tweet, thousand likes garuaunteed.

In order to cause an internet sensation, all I needed was a goal. At first, I tried to remember a tap-in, but the whole point is that it’s going to be unremarkable and unmemorable. So, then I decided that I needed to go back to the very start – 29th September 2018 against Wimbledon and work systematically through all sixty-one goals until I found one worthy of the definition of ‘a tap in’. What resulted was long and meandering adventure into the remarkable world of CamBran’s goals.

Before I got going, to be scientific about it, I needed a definition; what is a tap-in? Let’s start with the most basic characteristic – it must happen in open play. That rules out eighteen penalties, including four in one game against Gillingham and three in two games against Exeter. His most recent penalty was our last, against Peterborough in the Play-Off Semi Final in 2024 over 600 days ago.

By definition, a free-kick can’t be tapped in; this discounts another ten goals. I was a little surprised that he’s only scored ten direct free-kicks as I see it as one of his trademarks. His first was against Peterborough in the League Cup, his eighth goal for the club. The most recent was against Sheffield Wednesday. His best? I’m going for the goal against Cardiff last season.

So, 18 down, 43 to go. You also can’t tap-in from outside the box, that’s the rule. This is also one of Brannagan’s trademarks; in a world of xG and rapidly decreasing goals from outside the box, Brannagan’s exploits from distance could soon become consigned to history. In total, he’s found the net sixteen times from beyond the eighteen yard line. Four of those had assists from Gavin Whyte but more remarkably, nine didn’t have an assist of any note, Brannagan is lethal picking up loose defensive clearances and returning them with interest.

So, we’re down to sixteen goals from inside the box, surely there’s a tap-in amongst those? I was still fairly confident that my internet-breaking tweet would be unleashed onto an unsuspecting public.

But we’re getting into nuances now, I would argue a tap-in has to be a light touch, which is less definitive than the previous attributes. Matty Taylor was a master of tap-ins, finishing off a flowing move at the back post, nonchalantly flicking the ball into the net to take the plaudits.

There has to be a degree of rolling in the way it arrives in the net. There’s something very stylish about goalscorers who don’t feel the need to blast a ball, it’s almost as if they’re saying that the goal requires no effort, that it is destined to end up in the net. Need a goal? I’ll just pop one in for you.

We can immediately discount Brannagan’s two headed goals, which were the third and fourth of his Oxford career, against Wycombe in the EFL Trophy and Plymouth in the FA Cup. 

Admittedly, the rolling nature of a tapped in goal is somewhat subjective, but Brannagan takes no prisoners. There’s an anger in his strikes, he’s emphatic when he comes into contact with the ball. Perhaps it’s his stocky frame, a typical strike is a full-body motion. Maybe if you’re Michal Helik, your long limbs give you leverage and the force comes from your hips, when you’re Cameron Brannagan, his whole torso is part of the movement. He either doesn’t do tap-ins, or can’t do them.

In short, if the ball comes to him in the box, he leathers it like he’s channelling the force of the gods. That seething competitiveness channels through his body and through the ball. When it hits the net, it’s typically off the ground, often in the roof of the net even from close range. The closest I could get to a tap was his side footed effort against Norwich on the opening day of last season. But running onto Sam Long’s cross from the edge of the box the strike is low, but rising even when it hits the net. It’s not a tap-in by any stretch. So, no, Cameron Brannagan does not do tap-ins, the tweet was doomed never to see the light of day.

The odyssey revealed more about Brannagan’s character and perhaps about his legend at the club. Ten of his first eighteen goals were scored from inside the box, typically coming onto a loose ball to blast it into the net. In his last eighteen games, though, he’s scored just one – the aforementioned goal against Norwich which was only a yard inside. Has our playing style changed? Has he realised that he doesn’t need to be as all-action as he was in his younger days? Maybe it’s just an improving technique? Or maybe, as he’s become more comfortable at the club, integral to its inner workings, he’s just more confident in his role? Nobody is going to criticise him for trying from distance given the capital he’s built up with the fans.

But, it’s also about picking his moments; Brannagan is a big game player. His total is split pretty equally; 32 home, 29 away goals, but he definitely needs a crowd, he just got two in the covid season and is three times more likely to score when attacking towards the fans in the East Stand. In the 56 games he’s scored, we’ve won 33 drawn 15 and lost just eight.

Perhaps the best thing about Brannagan is that you don’t need stats to prove his worth. You feel it because he feels it, it might be a while before he adds to his tally, but when he does, you know it’ll be memorable. It’s true, Cameron Brannagan doesn’t do tap ins.