My clipping from this morning's copy of The Sun
It’s easy, this writing lark!
One hundred words on the final whistle. Piece of piss really when you’re covering a fairly minor first round Carling Cup tie unless …
I was looking forward to seeing how newly promoted Oxford fared against League One outfit Bristol Rovers. It was going to be a good test for them against a decent side and a win wouldn’t necessarily have been a shock – this wasn’t a footballing win though, it was blood sport at its most horrific.
Striker James Constable in particular looked to be a man making up for lost time after several seasons plying his trade in the conference. On Saturday in the goalless draw against Burton, Constable had to deal with veteran defender Darren Moore and the Oxford skipper admitted he had to check Moore still wasn’t behind him before kick off in last night’s game. However, he had no such problems with the Rovers defence.
Constable scored two and had a hand in two others (for winger Matt Green and midfield Simon Heslop) and his awareness was superb. Constable’s co-striker Jack Midson also found the net and Heslop wrapped things up with his second in the dying seconds with the Rovers players desperate to get back on the team bus and go home.
Simon Heslop also deserves special mention (as an excited Oxford fan called Ian Smith pointed out to me at half time) and he certainly helped boss the midfield and gave his teammates the platform on which to strut their stuff.
Whatever the level of football, most of us have been on the end of a drubbing like this at one time or another, but something was seriously wrong with the Rovers players last night and, although Paul Trollope claimed afterwards that spirit was good in the camp, I have seen a fair bit of these players in the last couple of seasons and felt that the problems ran deeper than a bad day at the office.
There are some very good footballers in the Rovers team which makes it an even more puzzling result and it’ll be interesting to see how they get on in the West Country derby game against Yeovil on Saturday. My feeling is that the cider drinkers will be licking their lips in anticipation if they get their hands on the DVD of this one!
But it would be churlish to put this result down to Rovers’ ineptness. As bad as they were, Oxford were excellent.
Every Oxford player got stuck in and the movement and passing were superb – the finishing wasn’t too shoddy either!
Poor Mike Green – making his first competitive start in the Rovers goal after four years with the club – deserved much better protection. Frankly the goals weren’t his fault and I hope that his teammates all chip in to buy him a decent bottle of malt so he can drown his sorrows – it’s the least they can do for him. Trollope said that several of them apologized to him in the dressing room afterwards and so that’s a start.
Mikkel Andersen is first choice as Rovers keeper for the next month while on loan from Reading, but he was away on international duty with the Danish U-21s last night. Don’t be surprised if he “misplaces” his passport when he gets wind of this performance.
Chris Wilder was chuffed with his players last night and well he might be. It’s a tricky job sitting in the dugout knowing what your players should be doing and yet not being able to really influence proceedings (ask Paul Trollope), but last night’s game was one of those that Wilder could sit back and enjoy knowing his players were doing everything right.
I suspect he wasn’t too disappointed with Chris Line’s Rovers goal either. It allowed former Rovers’ keeper (and fan) Ryan Clarke to bend down and pick the ball up and stretching exercises are good for an athlete after all!
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