Oxford United 1 - West Bromwich Albion 1

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Ratings submitted so far: 10

Ancient Baggie:

Really disappointing result in a game where we should have been out of sight after an hour. Decent first half and we kept the ball well going forward although we were guilty of trying to walk it in on several occasions when a shot on goal would've been the better option. Oxford didn't look very strong and were there for the taking if we could have been more effective in the final third.

With 15 minutes to go the equaliser started to look more and more likely. We fell into a familiar pattern of going deeper and trying to play in all the wrong areas. So many times Bartley, Furlong and others guilty of turning over possession and gifting chances instead of just clearing their lines. I'm not saying we shouldn't be trying to play possession football but it needs to be in the right areas of the pitch. I don't think we can play two touch on the edge of our own box with the personnel we have available.

On the positive side I thought Racic looked good and Diangana showed glimpses of the player he can be. Corberan sounded frustrated after the match but it's got to be down to him to get it sorted. COYB

Brendan Clegg:

Massively frustrating one.

The team was strong, mostly played well and in the first half especially we were so dominant that it’s criminal we’ve chucked 2 points away again.

Bad goals happen and we’ve lost 2 headers in our box in injury time from a long throw, but really our fault was not making enough of the situations we got into and then playing the last 20 minutes like one goal was enough.

Despite our frustrations I do think we took more risks, attacked quicker and I thought Oxford defended their box well… but when we did get into advanced situations our final decision was poor or we tried to walk it in.

Ultimately I think our biggest issue is we are so reliant on Maja and there is no plan b with Dike likely still months away from being impactful, if he can stay fit which is hugely questionable. We had a great window but it feels like at least 1 midfielder heavy and a proper forward light, and that’s going to make automatic promotion probably a bridge too far for us in a season where it’s definitely there to go at given the competition. In all our promotions and even under Megson we’ve had options… an aging Bob Taylor, Scott Dobie and Danny Dichio with a mostly injured Jason Roberts got us up the first time.

• Palmer - 6 nothing to do really
• Furlong- 6 mostly good, took up central positions when we attacked
• Ajayi - 6 also okay but lost the key header
• Bartley- 6 on another day it’s a clean sheet, generally okay
• Heggem - 6 Thought out left looked really solid but he lost his man for the goal
• Mowatt - 7 Ran the show for spells
• Racic - 6 I thought he looked closer to the pace
• Fellows - 5 not bad but a little subdued
• Grady - 6 creative and tricky but needed end product
• Grant - 7 Great goal and once again worked really hard, even if choices weren’t always great
• Maja - 7 linked it really well but will have been frustrated by our final pass or refusal to cross at times.

I thought the subs were all 5s, nobody terrible but the target man option we needed wasn’t available.