bluebruce

Why would the players be travelling on the train? Has our lease ran out on the much-lauded coach?

He will have been kept off the bench as the plan was to loan him back out for regular football, and if we brought him off the bench we can't do that. I very much doubt he is considered to be behind O'Grady Macken and Isaac Dunn in the pecking order. I'll not be surprised if that plan changes now. We brought in Forshaw because Baker left and Travis is injured for a bit longer. Now Tronstad is out we may decide we'd rather use Garrett ourselves. The budget is clearly a bit shit and being prioritised for a couple of attackers. I doubt we will take another chunk out of it to get a solid CM. For me we shouldn't have bothered with Forshaw, we should have been looking for a better CM in the first place. A good quality 3rd choice was what was needed, not a crap 4th/5th choice. All season, injury to Travis or Tronstad has loomed as a potential achilles heel, an area that can quickly go from being our strongest to our weakest position. Yes Travis was only going to be out a few more weeks when we got Forshaw, but injury to Tronstad, or recurrence to Travis, was always going to be a risk. It didn't need a top tier replacement, I accept the budget is poor. But we did need to bring someone in that was as good as Baker or ideally a bit better, and that should have been do-able.

Yep, I've been worried about this since Trav got injured, and even moreso once Tronstad got injured. He'll almost certainly be rushed back in. I'm confident most of Travis' bad patches or indifferent form over the years have come when he was rushed back or his body was overworked, or he was carrying an injury. Rushing him back will mean not only will he not be the Trav we saw first half of the season, but he'll be more prone to getting injured again. I know we are a bit desperate but I'd strongly consider giving him an extra 2 weeks from when he's back before starting him. Like you say, he'll be chomping at the bit and probably make out he is ready well before he is.

Lets hope it doesn't end up being another wasted loan. Looking at it now, sending him to a club who only have one league win since 5th October was probably a mistake, that manager was always looking imperilled.

I think Beck will be the next one to get injured if he doesn't get a rest at some point. Which he can't really for what, at least another month whilst Pickering is injured? Gives his all, pacey and aggressive...it'll do a number on his legs eventually.

Sorry, I could have sworn someone had said he was already back out on loan. Doesn't look like he is. Since he didn't make the bench yet again though and we'd rather put young Isaac Dunn on it, I think we can rest assured the intention is to send him back out, so we're avoiding playing him as that will prevent anyone else being eligible to field him.

Garrett already loaned back out. We're down to Buckley, JRC and Forshaw for the next few games. If Buckley plays like he did first half today, consistently, that will help a lot, but there's still no shielding for the defence there.

More - he should have been brought on instead of Forshaw.

It's a real shame we suck at corners.

For me, we already had one but have sent him on loan to League One.

Big balls up is more likely.

Good news then - Burnley didn't beat them at the Kassam, guess they're not going up.

Tbf that was a powerful free kick. Not easy to save.

Every bit as dangerous as it looked. Uphill struggle now just to get a point.

Was probably a fair call after I saw the replay, thought we'd won the ball in real time but we definitely just crunched him between two players.

ACD for Dolan had to happen. Hasn't looked sharp today, especially second half...ffs, as I type that, Dolan with a pathetic stumble.

Not sure why the Oxford players could come over shoving us while we are trying to set the free kick up and not get booked.

Very very soft from the ref that. I didn't even think it was worth having a talk with him, which is all he seemed to be doing at first. The card is a joke. Don't like seeing a physical and slightly erratic player like Gueye on a 1st half yellow either.

Tronstad injured is basically the nightmare scenario. Better be minor.

Nearly a screamer from Buckley there

Cantwell is having a stinker.

Agree Buckley is poor but that's a generous take for Cantwell. He needs to stop pissing around when he gets it if he's deep, gonna cost us a goal.

Cantwell lucky the offside flag went up there, needs to pick a different area of the pitch if he's going to fuck around with the ball like that. He nearly got caught in a similar position a minute earlier.

Not imposing ourselves at all so far. Will have to play better than this.

At least he's up against Beck