“Far And Away The Better Side” – Oxford United Fans & Manager React To Imps Win

Credit Graham Burrell

City scraped a 1-0 win against a strong-looking Oxford side this weekend, and there’s been plenty of reaction to the result.

We did a podcast, and I wrote my usual match report, but that’s a view from the red-and-white half of the ground. What about the yellow and blues? How did they see it? Here’s some views from their manager, and then some of their supporter reaction as well.

“I think that performance is going to help their confidence,” said interim boss Craig Short, who stepped up after Karl Robinson’s sacking last week. “The confidence was shot – I’ve been there as a player where you’ve lost games and not been performing at the level you have done. I wanted the players to perform at the level they have done for the three years I’ve been here, and previous to that when Karl’s been in charge. I wanted them to get back to that level and of course we’re gutted.”

One of their strongest players, in my eyes, was defender Elliot Moore, a man-mountain at the back who gave us nothing at all. He was restored as captain by Short, one of the decisions he reversed after he stepped down under Karl Robinson. It certainly sounds more like he had it removed from him, and Short put his faith back in the big defender. “Elliott has probably been the most consistent player in my time here,” he said. “I was a centre-back, I was captain and I always want a centre-back to be captain if you’ve got leadership qualities like Elliott has.”

Credit Graham Burrell

What of their supporters? They didn’t seem overly delighted when we took the lead through Danny Mandroiu’s penalty, with some immediately talking about relegation. However, there was also some balanced reaction, with some questions over whether it should have been a penalty.

Sadly, their official Twitter feed doesn’t really do updates, so there’s little about their dominant second half or their missed chances. There’s only one response to Rushworth’s save as well, but there were plenty of Oxford fans who seemed happy at the performance at full-time, if not the result.

However, there was also one supporter who lamented the loss of Matty Taylor, on loan at Port Vale, something I picked up in the pre-match podcast. One supporter even managed to mention us, which, oddly, hardly any of their fans did throughout the game.