Oxford United's Head Coach Karl Robinson wrote the following notes for the U's Leasing.com Trophy game against Norwich City U21s:
Good evening everyone and thanks for coming along to see our first game in this season’s Leasing.com Trophy. We welcome our new sponsor, but it remains a competition that this club has done well in over the last few years and we want to go as far as we can again this season.
At the same time, it perhaps gives us a chance to look at one or two of our younger players. We have stressed a number of times that there is a clear pathway through from the Academy to the first team; I know that our long Squad List idea, which features every player from first team to under 9s, has attracted a lot of interest and I believe at least one top-level club has been discussing doing something similar. We also have players like Dan Agyei and George Thorne, who have been working on their fitness and could come into the side, but whoever plays we will be picking a side designed to get us a win tonight.
Saturday was an unbelievable game of football and I’m not sure I have heard such a buzz after a draw here before! We were a bit sloppy in going 2-0 down at home; that is always going to make things so much tougher, but for the second time in a week we showed a bit of spirit to get back to 2-2. They then go up the other end and make it 3-2 in injury time but somehow, we refuse to be broken. Tariqe Fosu whips in a cross and their player shows what pressure can do by firing it past his own keeper.
That moment probably captured the whole game: Tariqe chasing a lost cause and our players chasing it in and putting Coventry under immense pressure. A great game for the neutrals but one we should have got more out of, and tonight gives us a quick opportunity to put things right.
Karl
You can read the full programme online at www.matchdayfix.com/oufc