Oxford United Chairman Sumrith 'Tiger' Thanakarnjanasuth wrote the following notes for tonight's programme for the Sky Bet League One game against Lincoln City:
Two weeks into the season and things are starting to settle down. We have played four games, winning the two home ones and losing the two away matches. All three league games have ended 1-0 and been so close, while the Carabao Cup game against Swansea was only decided on penalties.
That was a very good evening and showed a little of the true character of this side. Not many teams will come back from two goals down against a side from a higher division, so we can take heart from that evening and the great spirit from all the players, and from the dramatic win over Cambridge in our last league game here. But the simple fact is that we have been ahead for how long? Two minutes in total this season? For a team who scores so many goals, that has to be a concern but we also know that there is so much more to come from this group of players.
For the last few seasons we seem to have needed time for everything to gel. We have been so unlucky with injuries to forward players like Sam Baldock, Yanic Wildschut and Josh Murphy. Even when we gave our exciting forward Gatlin O’Donkor a first professional contract he got injured the next day! Let’s hope we used all our bad luck up already.
Talking of Gatlin, he was very much part of our plans at first-team level and so he stayed behind while the youth team flew out to Italy for three games and a pre-season tour. Our thanks to LFE (League Football Education) for their help with this, a trip we hope broadens our young players’ football knowledge but also gave them great experience against international opposition.
Another Academy product, Jack Stevens, has joined Port Vale on loan and it was good to see him keep a clean sheet on his debut on Saturday. Jack is very much part of our plans and signed a new contract on the same day he completed his loan, but the loan will also allow him to play matches while Simon Eastwood and the very promising Ed McGinty take care of things here.
As Jack departed, we welcomed Kyle Joseph on loan from Swansea, our eighth new face of the summer and a very hard-working forward who I think you are going to like watching. It has been a busy few weeks with new signings, and there may be one or two more before the window closes, but that brings me back to what I said at the start: there have been a lot of changes, it is still early, and things will start to settle down. Your support has been amazing, so stay patient and hopefully with three home games in a row we now start to find consistency and give you plenty to cheer about.
Tiger
You can read the full programme online at www.matchdayfix.com/oufc