Back to winning ways for the Yellows with the last two games won convincingly. Now that may seem an odd thing to say given that last night's game was won through a penalty and that Constable missed a penalty in the first half but the team I watched play last night and on Saturday was clearly better than the opposition on both occasions and can be most usefully criticised by noting that the players managed to miss a wealth of chances they created.
Saturday's game was notable for the quality of the Oxford game, as well as for the worrying sight of Alfie Potter pulling up and going off injured. He'll be missed as the season builds to a climax and hopefully he will be back soon. The other, happier sight was the Histon physio, a huge fat man whose run to his injured player surely gets plaudits for effort, even if he only managed to get there as the player was getting up and walking away. I think he got the loudest cheer of the afternoon.
Coming back to Rushden, once again I question the sense of Constable as captain since he is upfront and his job is to get goals, one he has proved to be excellent at. While he's worrying about the rest of the team it might be said that his focus is a little weakened. The other problem for me is the over-reliance on the superb Sam Deering to take the ball forward. In most situations when Oxford attacked the ball was passed to him on the right. He is more than able to deal with this but a little more variety in attack might help to provide more success.
Substitute Matt Green is a live wire and he always causes problems when he comes on. He might offer balance to Deering's searing runs.
I went last night without my son, who is getting over a cold and who was not very happy at being so cold on Saturday. This gave me the opportunity to listen to Jack FM's commentary. It was just a shame that Jack had gone to another game and that they were not able to tell me about Oxford United. Apparently the game last night was 'a war of attrition' and it was rather even. Er, not the game I saw. Oxford clearly had the upper hand and spent long periods in the Rushden half. Rushden had a handful of scoring chances all of which the ever solid Ryan Clarke managed to deal with ably and confidently.
According to Jack FM, all Blue Square refs are terrible and they all make the wrong decisions. This was echoed by the lamentable Lady Orgasm behind me who moaned her way through another game together with her equally miserable family. Everything Oxford did was met with cries of derision. Quite why these people come to football games to 'support' Oxford United is beyond me, since they complain about everything.
As to the referees, last night's example was officious but he seemed to me to be in control of the game and his two penalty decisions were spot on. The radio criticised him for his somewhat Teutonic hand gestures - there was more than a touch of the 'Austrian Corporal' about some of them - but generally I thought he did fine. Statistically, it is impossible for every refereeing decision to be wrong so why can't people just lighten up and accept that the ref is one man with 22 individuals challenging everything he does and every now and then he will err. Big deal. Get over it. Support your team.
All in all I thought it was an excellent performance and it demonstrates that the new signings have settled in very well. Call me a heretic but I am confident about the race to the finish. I realise that a true football fan laments every setback as the end of the world but that way lies the bleating of Lady O and her ilk and I'd rather not turn up if that is where football fandom leads.
One final point of controversy: the sale of the programmes prepared for December 26th was a scandal and p***ed me off. I like the programme and I actually bother to read it when I can. After all, normally I have an eight year old to attend to so I can only dip in. I shall therefore make my point in the only way possible, by not buying the programme at the next home game. I hope others follow suit. If I am going to spend my hard earned to support the team I expect to be treated better than this. Generally my experiences at the Kassam have been great but this annoyed me.
Anyway, onwards and upwards - and at the moment that's just what is happening so compliments to all concerned.
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