Charlton Athletic 0 Oxford United 4

I decided to give yesterday’s game a miss and took the football-widowed-other-half out for lunch. First time I have forced myself away from a game all season, and I’m grateful I did as it sounded desperate.

Despite a bright start Karl Robinson’s Oxford rolled us over. Punishing us in key areas and apparently we got away with 4.

It is hard to imagine that this was the same team (and manager) that won at Portsmouth a few weeks back, or even when we powered past Cambridge United in mid-December which afterwards had us all dreaming of a gung-ho second half of the season.

Instead here we are. Miserable, soul-searching, pointing fingers.

There’s no doubt that missing Stockley, Aneke and Washington would be a vast hole to fill for the some of the best teams in this division, let alone us yet, defensively we appear so unstructured and unorganized.

Sean Clare has had an excellent season post-Jackson, but has been a red card waiting to happen these past few games. The explanation for playing left backs and midfielders at centre-back with three centre-backs on the bench is game by game becoming more far-fetched.

Yet simply, like a broken record we have players are are either not up to the task, injury prone or don’t give a shit.

Wake me up on May 1st.

Jacko: “No one is going to feel sorry for us, you have to pick yourself up and these are the moments when you find out a little bit about people. We’ve got to have the character to come out here again and put it right on Tuesday. We’ve got an opportunity to put it right straight away and that’s what we need to do.”

Karl Robinson: “I wish maybe other people have that same pain and hurt that he’ll (Jackson) have this evening. He’s right up there with one of the most intelligent coaches I’ve worked with. Really bright, he knows what he’s doing. That’s not a friendship thing. I just think a lot of other things might need to change to make this a good club again.”

Photo credit: Kyle Andrews