I personally said after half hour Flynny should be brave a change things I would have taken Copper off then put Amound on

I wasn't at the game, but I do wonder to what extent we maybe treated it like a pre-season friendly?.... If as people say, the tournament itself can raise some valuable funds, should we not approach it with more determination in terms of team selection?
I know it's about striking a balance, and the League comes first, but just how close to a full strength team did Oxford put out?
I mean, they're struggling their division, we're doing well in ours, and one has to wonder whether a better selection might have beaten them, but then, do you risk injury to vital players?.... are we THAT bothered about the thing anyway, or just see it as a bonus?

It would have been nice to beat them, but how close was it to their first choice starting 11? Does it indicate that our league form may be somewhat misleading and that we're likely to drop a few places rather than go up a few?

I was a bit cheesed off at the amount of changes I know it's a long season but getting into Round 3 could have made us a mint

UPTHEPORT wrote:I was a bit cheesed off at the amount of changes I know it's a long season but getting into Round 3 could have made us a mint

Totally agree , Jim .
And , unless we had a few injuries , why change a winning side that have been playing some good stuff ?
The 2 early goals killed it to be fair , and I do think we played well in patches after going 2 down . They just looked sharper going forward and all 3 of their goals came from either pace out wide or a bit of positive attacking play through the middle . Something we lacked both of last night .
I don't think they were that much better than us at all , and if we'd kept the same side could well have won it .

Anyway .
Onwards and upwards ..... UTC

I don't think that the change of 'keeper had any real effect on the result.

With a bit of balls from the Ref OUFC would have been down to 9 men, and although we would only have 10 (due to the injury) it may have made the closing stages a little different.

What annoyed me was the fact the ref let them time waste from the moment the second goal went in. Keeper was taking the piss at times, yet the ref did nothing. Simple yellow early on gets that out the way.

Disappointing performance though, clear that Crofts and Cooper can't play in the same team. I hope we're not paying Cooper a wage and FGR are covering it. Mickey unlucky to score an OG and we lost our heads for a bit, but never really looked like creating anything. Was hoping to see Amond on at half-time, certainly looked more of a threat after his arrival.

According to Flynn the only unenforced changes were Day and Amond.

It wasn't far off the side that destroyed Cambridge in rd1. Oxford are a League 1 team and bar the crazy first 5 mins there was very little between the two teams imo.

What we've learnt is Crofts and Cooper are both defensive minded and didn't give us enough attacking ideas so Sheehan should have started.Matt and Semenyo are more static than Podge and Harris so the pair together didn't give us enough flair so Podge should have started.MF would have seen this and avoid making this mistake in a more important game.

Percy plunkett wrote:What we've learnt is Crofts and Cooper are both defensive minded and didn't give us enough attacking ideas so Sheehan should have started.Matt and Semenyo are more static than Podge and Harris so the pair together didn't give us enough flair so Podge should have started.MF would have seen this and avoid making this mistake in a more important game.

Is there any way of returning Cooper to F.G.R., or are we stuck with him all season?

Cornish Exile wrote:

Percy plunkett wrote:What we've learnt is Crofts and Cooper are both defensive minded and didn't give us enough attacking ideas so Sheehan should have started.Matt and Semenyo are more static than Podge and Harris so the pair together didn't give us enough flair so Podge should have started.MF would have seen this and avoid making this mistake in a more important game.

Is there any way of returning Cooper to F.G.R., or are we stuck with him all season?

He was better than Crofts!

SULLY34 wrote:

Cornish Exile wrote:

Percy plunkett wrote:What we've learnt is Crofts and Cooper are both defensive minded and didn't give us enough attacking ideas so Sheehan should have started.Matt and Semenyo are more static than Podge and Harris so the pair together didn't give us enough flair so Podge should have started.MF would have seen this and avoid making this mistake in a more important game.

Is there any way of returning Cooper to F.G.R., or are we stuck with him all season?

He was better than Crofts!

He should be considering Crofts hasn't trained for weeks due to injury.

I thought Cooper and Townsend did ok last night....

The game was lost after 4 minutes after our CRAZY opening

neilcork68 wrote:I thought Cooper and Townsend did ok last night....

The game was lost after 4 minutes after our CRAZY opening

I was also a little bit upset that because we had a 'big man ' up front we reverted to longer balls , long throws etc......

neilcork68 wrote:

neilcork68 wrote:I thought Cooper and Townsend did ok last night....

The game was lost after 4 minutes after our CRAZY opening

I was also a little bit upset that because we had a 'big man ' up front we reverted to longer balls , long throws etc......

Cooper did play ok Neal, I agree. Crofts was way off it.