Tag: Lincoln City

Match wrap | Oxford United 0 Lincoln City 1

There was always going to be a correction. 

Amongst the waves of optimism crashing joyously over the Kassam on Saturday, I had one small nagging doubt. Like Chief Brody in Jaws, spying an ominous fin cutting through the water amongst the holiday makers, there was one thing I couldn’t ignore.

Don’t get me wrong; Saturday was no accident, it was a performance of the highest quality against a very good side in a fantastic atmosphere. Because it was unusual, doesn’t make it fortuitous.

After Peterborough, we’d won three games, scored thirteen goals and conceded none. No team wins every game by four or five goals. No team can avoid conceding for weeks on end. For every action, there’s a reaction, every goal against Peterborough would raise an alert with Lincoln about our attacking threats, every pass would soak more fatigue into Josh McEachran’s muscles. At some point, all these things would conspire to bring this run to an end.

In order to make the play-offs we needed our three win sequence to extend throughout our remaining three league games. Then, to succeed in the play-offs we’d need another three positive results. So, to be successful and get promoted, we needed to conjure up something close to a nine-game winning streak against the best teams in the division. To do that, we’re gonna need a bigger boat.

So, there had to be a correction. There was hope that it would be at a time of our choosing, perhaps at Exeter, secure in the knowledge we’d be in the play-offs, we could rest some players and switch the magic form machine back on for the play-off campaign. There was even some discussion about who we might want to face – probably not Peterborough because we’d beaten them 5-0 recently, or Bolton because we’d lost to them 5-0 recently.

There’s a lot said about navigating the play-offs – teams are seen to have an advantage if they have a late run or go in with momentum. But, let’s pause and think about that – a late run is drawn from middle distance running and the tactic of sitting towards the back of the pack before bursting through at the end. Do teams, by choice, reserve some of their form earlier in the season so they can time their run at the play-off places at the end? Did Lincoln, or indeed us, drop points deliberately in order to spring a surprise late season attack? Seems unlikely.

In physics, momentum is ‘mass in motion’, it implies that a force is being applied. But the force being applied to push a team on isn’t physical, it’s not momentum in the literal sense. These are metaphors for one thing – confidence.

With confidence you try things you might not otherwise. Confidence is the difference between Billy Bodin chipping the keeper from twenty-five yards and him heading for the corner flag to protect a lead. It’s an assuredness in your ability; Cameron Brannagan is immensely confident, he feels able to shoot from distance on a regular basis knowing he’ll fail most times and succeed occasionally.

Lincoln came into the game off one defeat in seventeen. They knew their meat and two veg, short back and sides 4-4-2 worked despite their result against Wigan at the weekend. They had the confidence to defend deeply and in numbers, occupying the great plains of space Josh Murphy enjoyed on Saturday. 

I have a sneaking admiration for teams like this, who ignore orthodoxy or established best practice and find a system that suits them. Lincoln may not play progressive football; but they’re very good at what they do. They’re comfortable and confident in their own skin, not something we always enjoy.

This well established confidence gave them licence to be patient, without a point to prove, they focussed entirely on ensuring that whatever they did, they did with purpose. Equally, our risk versus reward model did what it’s supposed to do – we created a couple of chances while conceding a couple of chances. Our confidence from Saturday coupled with their confidence made for a tight and intriguing game. 

By remaining steadfast they opened the door for us to become frustrated by our lack of progress, they allowed the occasion to pull the game apart. They knew that as time went on we’d want to take more risks, the crowd would become agitated and mistakes would create openings. The decisive opportunity came within seconds of the restart, the referee, seemingly caught out by their break, rushed into making a  judgement rather than a decision. We looked on the back foot and certain to concede, when Rodrigues lunged into the tackle it looked like it might be a penalty, which was enough for the referee, even though replays seem to show that clearly it wasn’t. 

From there, by having to go on the front foot, we were on the back foot. As we probed, they overloaded the game with niggles – Browne was battered, Brannagan was introduced and seemed to enter an interminable argument with Ethan Erhahon. Petty fouls forced the referee into a series of marginal decisions, each one making the next more significant and difficult. This all ate time and built tension, the crowd got frustrated and we lost focus. Lincoln stayed resolute,  confident they didn’t need to contribute anymore to the game in terms of entertainment, confident that they could run the clock down and still be heroes. We were caught in their trap and could have few complaints.

So the correction has happened, the penalty decision was harsh and perhaps we deserved a point. The response seems fairly measured, nobody is completely surprised that it happened, even though we hoped it wouldn’t. What’s critical is how we respond and how we retain the confidence we’ve established over the last few weeks. Our response is a choice; we might as well enjoy it, it’s not going to get any easier.

Match wrap | Lincoln City 0 Oxford United 2

I had a flashback during last night’s game against Lincoln. We had a goal kick taken by Elliott Moore, the ball rolled barely two feet to James Beadle who touched it once and launched it up field. 

It made no sense, there was no advantage to Beadle simply taking the kick himself. In fact, it created a small disadvantage because, should the ball come straight back, Moore was standing in the six yard box playing everyone onside.

It reminded me of one of our early encounters with League One Extreme Playing From The Back (LOEPFTB). It was February 2021 away at MK Dons during lockdown, I commented on it at the time, it was almost obsessive and regularly got them into trouble. In December of that year, under Liam Manning they did it again, Nathan Holland stole in to harry a dawdling keeper and Mark Sykes scored the winner at Stadium MK. Fast forward to April 2022 and they’re at it again, rolling the ball around the back line until Billy Bodin nicked in to score a last minute winner which also marked Karl Robinson’s final peak before the rot set in. Those two moments effectively cost Manning promotion to the Championship.

So, it seems I was aware of Liam Manning before I was conscious of Liam Manning. It was interesting last night that, following the injury to Sam Long and the switch to a conventional back-four, we seemed generally more comfortable. That wasn’t the only thing of course, the return of Cameron Brannagan shared the load with Marcus McGuane in midfield and the energy of Stan Mills and Tyler Goodrham meant we retained a higher pace than at other times this season.

But, LOEPFTB was still evident as the ball was regularly played along the back line and back again while Lincoln worked hard to close everything down and force mistakes. Their high pressing game, when stripped of too much LOEPFTB, is almost becoming the modern day equivalent of route one football and is clearly a growing favourite amongst teams at our level. It relies on fitness and organisation over technique and is designed to crush creativity. If you’re a mid-ranking side with limited funds, it makes sense to invest in these controllables over mercurial talent.

In the early stages we played the ball around while Lincoln buzzed about trying to catch a loose ball or two. It worked a couple of times and Beadle did well to stop them capitalising. Being caught out from time to time seems to be priced into our chosen style, but it still feels a bit loose. 

The opening goal, though, was a much simpler affair – quality ball into the box from Brannagan, strong header from Cairon Brown, 1-0. It was nearly two when Tyler Goodrham drove from outside the box. We put the game to bed when Stan Mills charged down the wing and fired in a cross, forcing the keeper to parry into his own net.

In the closing minutes, with the game safe, Gatlin O’Donkor decided, uncharacteristically, to have a shot from range. For those who accuse O’Donkor of appearing disinterested, it was good to see him speculate a little. According to Jerome Sale, Liam Manning didn’t look impressed because it wasn’t in the style he wanted, but that ignores that the game was won by similar moments of simplicity.

Purists will argue, probably rightly, that LOEPFTB is a proven way of creating those chances, it stretches teams, tires them out, stops them from establishing an attacking threat and forces them into mistakes. It’s all a platform for putting your laces through it or getting your noggin on a cross and sticking it in the net. We have been less willing to do that in recent weeks, but you can see what benefit it had against Lincoln.

As we’ve seen a couple of times this season, it can sometimes seem like we’re trying to unlock teams when the door is already open. Our inherent ability can be equally effective as our tactical sophistication. Our best performances – Barnsley, Derby – have come when we haven’t been allowed to be quite so cerebral, or last night, when Sam Long’s injury forced a pragmatic response. 

In 2010, Chris Wilder abandoned his attacking trio of Midson, Green and Constable in favour of Franny Green and John Grant mid-season, causing a dip in form which he eventually rectified by reinstating the original trio. Equally, in 2016, Michael Appleton struggled to squeeze Danny Hylton into his ideological framework, but Hylton’s ability to deliver regardless meant he maintained a presence throughout the season. Both season’s were successful, but they did require an adjustment to the managers’ tactical indulgences.

This was a excellent demonstration of football’s simpler virtues and let’s not forget a) we won, b) we’re second and c) this is one of the best starts we’ve ever had. It may also be exactly what Manning thinks – we need to be more clinical taking chances. But it teaches us something about not becoming too dedicated to ideology because it can derail the best teams. A reminder not to over-complicate or over-strategise; football is a simple game.

Match wrap – Lincoln City 1 Oxford United 0

I used to work with someone who’d come from a multi-billion pound global blue chip company with tens of thousands of employees. The company I work for aren’t a multi-billion-pound global blue-chip company with tens of thousands of employees. Their employment was pretty much predicated on this, when their arrival was announced, the company was mentioned before their name.

They talked about ‘transformation’ and about what their previous employer did, they introduced ‘technology stacks’, CTAs (call to actions), UX (user experience) and POCs (proof of concept). We already used these terms or variations thereof, but this was the language of Global Corp and therefore ‘good’. Others started talking in that way because it sounded informed about modern business. Everything we did had to be stripped back and workshopped using agile techniques as though nobody knew what the business did or how it worked. They were a qualified scrum master, everything was broken down into agile sprints, which seemed to become bigger and slower than any project we’d done in the past.

It created a magnetic pull, everything gravitated towards them, nothing could be done with a workshop to establish the user journey, UX, CTAs, POCs or an assessment on the impact on the technology stack. Strategies had to be written about strategies, we were on a three-year transformation, which became a five-year transformation, which became and eight-year transformation. The whole business would be replaced by AI and algorithms. It needed investment, the equivalent of about three years’ turnover, or Global Corps’ back-up paper clip budget.

Nothing ever got done, the story and working practices of Global Corp calcified around the business, people got frustrated, they got on with their jobs, expectations grew beyond anything that was possible. Workshops were still held, but people ignored the outcomes.

We all come with a story; it creates perceptions, sets expectations, and causes distractions. For weeks, we’ve been obsessing over Karl Robinson’s departure, results haven’t so much been the focus of the problem as the fuel for the discussion. Now he’s gone, there’s another story dominating the scene – who’s next?

Michael Appleton has rapidly become the number one talking point; fans want him, he wants to come (apparently), nobody has a bad thing to say about him. But he comes with a story, a big one. It’s been re-edited over time, he’s now a transformative manager who’d just ‘sort things out’. Is he? Or did it take nearly a year of struggle? Didn’t he say, when things were going badly, there was no plan B? He had a vision at Oxford, which he was given a chance to realise, but nothing he’s done in management suggests it’s a quick job.

Of course, if he comes in and succeeds, he would just cement his legend and nobody is going to complain about that, but he doesn’t have magical powers – his story – 2016 and all that – immediately creates a pressure he didn’t have first time around. And what if it goes wrong, what if he isn’t the new messiah (a label we would place on him, not him)? Will we have the heart to fire him and find someone new? Karl Robinson’s sacking was undoubtedly slowed because of his backstory – one caller to Radio Oxford on Saturday didn’t think he’d been given enough time despite five years and a run of form that we haven’t seen for over 20 years.

The real story here is the next eight weeks and a fight to avoid relegation. Anything else – including the return of managerial or playing legends or big names – is a distraction. We do need to resolve the management discussion so we can focus on the job at hand, but we don’t need six weeks of sepia tinged nostalgia about how great everything was in the past. In 2006 Jim Smith returned to Oxford as we teetered on the edge of relegation to the Conference. It was emotional, there was talk about buying the stadium, transforming it and flying up the leagues back to the glory days of yore. We won two in eight and were relegated.

Despite the defeat to Lincoln, there was a vague flicker of hope. Carl Short seemed to have focussed the team on stopping the rot rather than playing their way out of it; we were more dogged, committed and disciplined. Apart from the penalty which was fair but a disproportionate punishment for the foul, we didn’t look as shaky and fashioned some half-chances to take a point. That’s clearly not where we want to be, but it’s where we’re at. It’s a process, after all.

The players seem committed, Elliott Moore, returned to the captaincy, sounded more resolute than he has in the past. It built on Cameron Brannagan’s call to arms last week. If Short can remove the Robinson’s bluster from the squad – his appointment of joint captains was the final articulation of that – then they can find a way out of trouble. There’s longer term work to do, but there are some terrible teams below us – despite taking one point in twenty-seven, the teams below us have gained only two points on us in that time. This is also the squad that beat Bolton and Ipswich and nearly beat Sheffield Wednesday, it feels like a long time ago, but it’s true.

The fans too need to lean in, to enjoy the drama and commit to the mission, a few years ago we played Bristol Rovers who were in dire trouble. They arrived in their masses at the Kassam, made a huge racket, picked up three points and changed their narrative. We might need some luck just to break the sequence we’re in. That doesn’t mean scoring one off the floodlights, just having a shot which doesn’t graze the shin of a defender and go wide. If we can, then with commitment and unity, this doesn’t need to be the disaster it’s threatening to be.

Going back to basics is easier to say than done, but it’s got to be the goal; a re-focussing on the real story – not the manager’s departure or the new manager’s arrival – but the performances on the pitch. The quicker we can do that, the more likely we are to avoid relegation. 

Match wrap – Oxford United 1 Lincoln City 2

In 1981 Aston Villa won the League Championship using fourteen players, ten of which played over 85% of their games, seven were ever-present. In 2016, when Leicester City won the Premier League, eleven players played more than three-quarters of their league fixtures.

The following season only five Leicester players reached that threshold, Villa added one player to their squad, used 25 players and had just two ever-presents. Leicester finished twelfth, Villa eleventh. Villa won the European Cup, arguably an easier competition than the league to win, but that’s not the point; stick with me.

It’s possible that after the Bristol Rovers game, I gave the impression that I thought Karl Robinson should go. That wasn’t the point, the issue is alignment of ambitions. Both Villa and Leicester’s titles were the result of an unexpected alignment of a range of factors – the quality of their first choice team and the fact they all maintained form and fitness throughout the season. There was no room for error and there was no error. When both failed to invest the following season, they paid the price of not having that extra capacity. Managers, Claudio Ranieri and Ron Saunders left within months of winning their titles because expectations of the manager, fans and board were misaligned.

If you want to change something, you have to over-invest in it. There’s effort involved in staying the same, so you can’t rely on that effort to also make changes. That either means you have to sacrifice something you’re already doing or you have to increase your investment of time and effort. 

This summer has been a familiar tale; late signings, slow start to the season. In the past, that’s been followed by a revival where all is forgiven. Why is that? Is it just the Robinson way? Is it that the board isn’t prepared to invest deeply and quickly enough? Is everyone OK with this scenario and the potential risk that there won’t be a revival?

From the board perspective, they’re planning to invest millions in a new stadium, are they willing to invest similarly in a promotion chasing squad right now? Is promotion desirable, given the exponential costs of running a Championship team in a stadium which currently has limited opportunity for commercial growth?

A new stadium is three to four years away minimum and that should give us a resource that allows for sustainable Championship football. If he’s still here, Karl Robinson will have been manager for seven years. Few managers serve that length of time; they might get a better offer, something could go wrong and they get sacked, or they may simply run out of steam and need to take a break. Given that chances of him making it to the new stadium seem slim, can Robinson picture himself there? And, if he doesn’t see himself at the stadium, then where does he think this might end and how close does he think he is to that point?

And then there are the fans; promotion is always the ambition, but there’s also an appetite to maintain the short term situation as-is, as long as the mid and long term plans are progressing. That patience won’t last forever, particularly if the long-term picture is fuzzy; some clarity on the ownership would offer some headroom, as would progress on the stadium.

As for last night, boos rang out across The Kassam at half-time in a way we haven’t heard in years. But, that was partly to do with how the half ended – we conceded a second goal in injury time, then made a mess of a free-kick in a good position seconds before the whistle went. It was all immensely frustrating.

It wasn’t a good first half, but as an attacking threat we actually looked marginally better than we have done and in the second half we were dominant. Ironically, it was probably our best performance of the season, even with the worst outcome. Marcus McGuane looked strong in midfield, there was movement down both flanks which looked menacing, even if the final ball wasn’t great. 

This raises questions about established players – if McGuane is in control of midfield, what’s Brannagan’s role? A lack of supply is impacting Matt Taylor, so how do we get him firing? And where does James Henry (the Greatest of All Time, let us not forget) fit into this? These questions all need to be resolved and, because it wasn’t resolved in pre-season, that’ll have to happen on the pitch. It’s frustrating to watch, but I’m pretty confident it will eventually work itself out. The question remains how far behind we’ll be when that happens and whether that’s acceptable.

We’re seeing teams that are developing a competence for this level which should, at least, see them safe from relegation; Bristol Rovers, Cambridge, Lincoln, all of whom have been in the Conference in recent years now playing at the third tier. Given the current financial climate, that might be good enough for now. They don’t swashbuckle their way to promotion, spending wildly; they’re organised and resolute – aiming for a point away, hoping for three.

And I think one of our difficulties is that we’re not Sheffield Wednesday, Derby or Ipswich and we’re not Lincoln, Bristol Rovers or Cambridge. We have an identity crisis – should we invest in solid foundations? Players who are good for this level. Or do we invest in players who will get us to the next level? Or, are we somewhere in the middle, investing in players who could play in the Championship, but are prone to injuries and losses of form?

Nobody would turn down promotion if it happened, it would be a bit like Villa in 1981 and Leicester in 2016 – nobody plans for it, things just fall into place. But if the board is happy to hold things for a year or two while the stadium is resolved, will that keep Karl Robinson happy? If Robinson wants to go for broke this season, do the board have the appetite to back him given their other priorities? Where do the fans stand in all this and more significantly, what’s their direction of travel? Losing faith, gaining faith, holding firm? Most importantly, are we all aligned? One group’s success could be another’s disappointment.

So, it’s not so much the merits of whether Karl Robinson and the players are good enough; Robinson is a good manager, the players are good players, there is no lack of effort or commitment on the pitch. I’m sure we’re good enough to improve our current position, but whether everyone agrees on that relatively low bar being the target, of that I’m much less sure.

Match wrap – Lincoln City 2 Oxford United 0

This equivalent weekend six years ago we beat Swansea City in the FA Cup. For me, it was the most perfect performance in an almost perfect season. Suddenly the national press took an interest in what was happening at the club; there was a flood of stories about the secret revolution that was happening; the innovative recruitment of Premier League academy players who’d hit a dead end and the introduction of sports science and analytics to a level of football that was in the dark ages. I thought we were on the road to becoming one of those über modern clubs like Swansea, Bournemouth and Brentford, able to succeed without selling their soul.

At the heart of it all, of course, was Michael Appleton; steely eyed with rippling muscles, looking like no other manager in football. It’s an interesting aesthetic to workout to build muscles beyond what might be considered to be natural. It’s like having a breast enlargement so large and obvious that it doesn’t so much create confidence or an attractive shape as scream, ‘Look, I’ve put five grand in my bra’. It’s not like Appleton needs to be physically, excessively, strong to be a football manager, he’s not going to biff anyone on the nose or do that thing on World’s Strongest Man where they have to lift giant stones onto barrels.

But Appleton was a man of extreme investment; you can’t imagine that he ever doom scrolls on his phone while watching Homes Under The Hammer. The sleeve tattoo, the Masters degree, the need to prove himself and succeed practically bursts out of him. His face, a rictus concrete grimace, looks like it’s straining to contain a primal scream that says ‘I have value’. We love him, but it’ll never be enough. The intensity eventually wore him out at Oxford, mentally he couldn’t sustain it, nobody could. He admitted, at the end of the 2016/17 season, that he needed a rest, then he was gone to act as an assistant and get out of the limelight.

Karl Robinson, by contrast, is an avalanche of emotion, whatever pressures, desires and enthusiasm that flows into him, almost immediately flows back out again. Where Appleton is like a dam ready to burst, Robinson is a free flowing river. The biggest challenge he has is trying to ensure that the flow doesn’t burst its banks and flood everything.

The defeat to Lincoln means we’ve now won just one in the last four, or perhaps we’ve lost just two in the last thirteen, or perhaps it was only our first away defeat since Cheltenham in September. There were people immediately after the whistle almost calling for an overhaul of the squad despite us still being fifth.

It didn’t help that in addition to those in the ground, we could also watch the game unfolding live on iFollow. It’s true we weren’t at our best, but then it was like that at MK Dons and we turned it around. If Matty Taylor’s early chance had gone in, it would have been very different, his disallowed goal, although a correct decision, shows we weren’t that far away.

Herbie Kane’s red card was obviously a blow. Whether it was justified or not was hard to say. Steve Kinniburgh and Jerome Sale tried to articulate the issue with it, it was a punishment for a previous fouls or something that tends to only happens when you’re away from home. I think the issue is that up until that point the referee hadn’t issued a yellow card despite there being moments that would have warranted it – the little set-to between Chris Maguire and Mark Sykes. The players had no idea where the line of acceptabilty was; a full blooded challenge was generally fine in most cases, then suddenly it wasn’t.

The introduction just after the hour of James Henry and Nathan Holland was a timely reminder that as good as Ryan Williams and Gavin Whyte have been, it’s players like Henry and Holland that have given us the edge in the past. The mass of covid changes we had to make against Fleetwood and Rotherham saw the squad being quickly recalibrated, then there was the relapse against Wigan. The loss of Thornily, Brannagan and Kane is another lurch.

Runners call it ‘flow’, cyclists call it ‘form’; a sense of effortlessness, that everything is working just so. For most of us, if we’re lucky, it lasts until we become conscious of it. That’s the point when we become aware of a pain in our leg, a need to go to the toilet or that one of our socks is slipping down.

For the most successful sportspeople, it lasts much longer, but it’s a precarious thing. Cyclist Chris Boardman once said that when you’re in a time trial, you’re constantly asking yourself ‘can I sustain this effort?’. If you say ‘yes’ you’re not trying hard enough, if it’s ‘no’ you’re going too fast; the answer you’re looking for is ‘maybe’. Reading about the Novak Djokovic case in Australia, it doesn’t seem that he’s quite the anti-vaccination freedom fighter as he’s sometimes portrayed. It’s more that through his successes he’s managed to reach a mental state where he has complete self-confidence in his own often unconventional ways. Nothing – including vaccinations, pandemics or even national border policies – can or should disrupt his status quo. It is utterly selfish, but he’d argue that the ends justify the means.

A few weeks ago I talked about our ability to constantly evolve our midfield – Gorrin, Kane, Brannagan, McGuane, Sykes, Henry could be brought in, play a few games, have an impact, then be given a rest. In recent weeks we haven’t been able to rotate the squad like that, great chunks of it have been ripped from us. We’ve survived, but it’s disrupted our flow and form, we’ve gone from drought to flood and back again.

Michael Appleton’s response, you suspect, would have been to stand firm and let the crisis pass. There is no Plan B; it’s a rigidity which nearly did for him in his first season at Oxford and he’s under similar pressure at Lincoln despite their success last year. The risk for us now is that the more free-flowing Karl Robinson over-compensates, that he tries to inject his energy directly in the veins of the squad; bringing players back before they’re ready or trying some tactical revolution to jump start us. As much as form feels like a magical, ethereal energy, we need to manage our way back into it. No panic, but not ignoring the issue. With Wycombe next week and Sheffield Wednesday the week after, there’s no down time to re-set ourselves and find our form. Robinson needs to think clearly, as much as the here and now might demand his attention, he needs to think how he manages the squad over the next few weeks to steer us both through the current challenges and back into the form that we enjoyed earlier in the season.

George Lawrence’s Shorts – Herbie goes bananas

Henry’s hoover

Oxford United are giving themselves the best possible chance of promotion after a James Henry hat-trick beat MApp’s Lincoln City 3-1 on Saturday before they focussed onknocked out of the Papa John’s Trophy as early as possible. Former Yellows loanee Sam Smith, now at Cambridge, took sixty seconds to score two-thirds of the goals he managed for us in six months as the hosts cruised to a 4-1 victory. Gutted not gutted.

Regular movements

KRob was relieved to see the transfer window close after he thought Cameron Brannagan was Brannagone when Blackpool put in a cheeky final day bid. In the end he Brannastayed, which obviously doesn’t work. 

Having frantically tried to address the leftbacksituation, KRob suddenly remembered he had more cover than he’d ever need with injured right-back Sam Long, injured midfielder Jamie Hanson, Derek Fazackerley and club historian Martin Brodetsky all able to cover if necessary. So, that’s OK then.

It was proper name-scenes elsewhere as Herbert ‘Herbie’ Kane signed on loan from Barnsley. Kane is just twenty-two, but has a serious ‘indeterminate Eastern European with a law degree who runs an oven cleaning service for rich Brexiteers’ vibe about him. We also signed ‘youngster’ (aka future Woking loanee) Ben Davies from Fulham.

Meanwhile, we bade a final ‘Hey Yaw’ to Derek Osei Yaw who got on his Osei and left town. The departure was by mutual consent; KRob didn’t know who he was and Derek agreed.

Whyte back where he belongs

Gavin Whyte has been talking about his return to Oxford while on international duty with Northern Ireland. He revealed that he’s settling in nicely. “I’m back living in Bicester and Mark Sykes lives just a few doors away so that helps as well.” Now reunited with his old Jeward twin, it’ll be back to the neon winkle pickers and silver drainpipe trousers before you know it. 

Fos-silised

The stepover kid, Tariqe Fosu’s proposed move to Swansea City collapsed after Swans captain Matt Grimes stayed at the (now, this can’t be right can it?) Swansea.com Stadium. We know that Joey Barton is used to punching down, but you can’t punch much further down than signing Junior Brown for Bristol Rovers.

Chaptain fantastic

When he wasn’t burning his nipples on breast milk, Adam Chapman was amongst the best there was. He scored a thirty yard screamer for Grantham Town against Basford United. Chapman was ‘talismanic’ for, wait for it, The Gingerbreadmen who he joined from Gainsborough this summer.