What's with the over dramatic reaction to us only drawing? Team selection was 'staggering misjudgement' -what? There have been loads of posts lauding our strength in depth, and I agree. We started Woodburn which was unexpected and not what I would've done, but is it really staggering? No. I've also seen people say on social media it was a must win. The 16th game of the season is a must win. Come on. Are we going to have such a ridiculous reaction every time we don't win? Because I hate to break it to everyone but we aren't going to win every game from now until the end of the season, so you need to brace yourselves.
We played well today. We do need some more firepower, but our defence is giving us a very solid platform to move upwards. I see there aren't nearly as many posts about Critchley's decision to choose Gabriel over Turton (who had been playing well), but maybe that's because it doesn't quite fit the Critchley narrative. It was a good decision, and he played well enough to justify the selection I thought, often available on the overlap.
Husband made me eat my words as I haven't been his biggest fan, but he had a good game. He did give away a silly foul which led to Maxwell's worldy save, but that aside he was pretty good.
As I've said, Woodburn didn't really work, and Yates was unlucky not to start. I think with Woodburn he needs more games, much like one or two others did earlier in the season. But it's not a surprise to see a little squad rotation with so many midweek games this season. This policy may actually help us later on in the season, who knows.
I think we need to give Oxford some credit too as they defended well mostly, and I think they'll finish much higher than they are. But I do think today showed we've made more progress than they have in the last 12 months. Yes I know we beat them last year but the quality of player and performance was much more in our favour this time around.
A rise up the league table is rarely linear, and we're still in a very decent place going into the Christmas period, especially having just beaten Peterborough, Portsmouth, and Fleetwood. We can't, and won't win them all.