From where I was standing Haystead appeared to misjudge the flight of the ball for Oxford's first goal. There may be an excuse in that the floodlights were amongst the worst I have seen, and the Oxford keeper also mishandled a routine catch out for a corner in the second half.
From a poor start, we were then dominant for the remainder of the first half, with Oxford unable to cope with the pace of Weir-Daley and Fairclough. Two well taken goals from Weir-Daley, and you'd have to say we were the best side and deserved to be in the lead at half-time.
I'm not sure what was said during the half-time break, but we didn't switch on at the start of the second half. Within a matter of minutes we were 3-2 down. The worrying thing from there is that, for the remainder of the game, we did not produce a meaningful attempt to trouble the Oxford goalkeeper. Weir-Daley and Fairclough worked hard and Ward did enough to justify his inclusion on Saturday, hopefully at centre half alongside Stainfield. But too many players didn't perform on the night.
It was a long away trip for part-time players, many of whom may have done a day at work beforehand, and you can make that excuse for losing at Oxford. But it doesn't apply to any of the previous games against Hinckley, Bishop's Stortford or Workington.
After about an hour I thought we needed a change from the bench to threshen things up, but Jason waited until around the 80th minute. When we did finally make a change, we threw on three substitutes virtually all at once. It usually takes time for subs to become acclimatised to the speed of a game, etc., and I thought we didn't allow the subs anywhere near enough time to make an impact. (Stokes did force the keeper into one save, but it was a fairly routine block at his near post). Additionally, because of the chaos caused by throwing three on together, we lost our shape and Oxford broke and scored again in stoppage time.
Not sure where we go from here, other than Colwyn Bay. If the chairman does decide to pull the rug from under the manager's feet, then the position will have to be advertised. I can't think of anyone in the dressing room currently who would be qualified to take over in a caretaker manager capacity. (Last season there were plenty of candidates - Alan White, Kevin Austin, Paul Bastock, etc). With no obvious replacement to call upon for a short-term vacancy, I think the chairman will wait until after Saturday before making any decision. But it needs to be spelled out that the current sequence of results and performances is not acceptable and both have to improve straight away. If I were chairman I'd be thinking about requesting Steve Welsh to make the journey to Wales on Saturday to take a look at things for himself. He would be the obvious candidate if we needed to look for a short-term caretaker manager, and there comes a point at which the chairman needs to look after the club's best interests.
