Oxford United 0 Coventry City 0 (Coventry won the Bill Halsey Memorial Cup 9-8 on penalties)

I suspect Ian Atkins will be more than happy with this. No doubt he'll point to the fact that his 3rd
division journeymen stopped a 1st division outfit featuring McAllister, Safri, Suffo, and Adebola from
scoring. He'll probably point at the defence and make comments about Oxford being, "solid," and make the
quite correct assertion that the defence lacked McCarthy and featured Scott McNiven as the right-sided
Centre back.
That said, I also suspect the vast majority of the Oxford fans present will point to the fact that the
most interesting part of this encounter was the penalty shootout, and that the rest of the game was
turgid to put it mildly. Others would also point out from far from addressing the need to get crosses to
Alsop; the big man was left even more isolated than before. Moreover, playing Dean Whitehead could be
argued is as sacrilegious as using a Page 3 girl to model a burqa.
This game was interesting to see how Ian Atkins' first eleven is shaping up. Townsley unsurprisingly started,
and Basham was chosen alongside Alsop, which presumably means Atkins sees his striking options as
Alsop plus one other. Widdrington was preferred to the other midfield triallist, Simpson, and promptly did
his chances of getting a contract considerable damage, missing far too many straightforward passes. The
midfield as a unit looked disjointed with only Danny Brown showing any great creativity. That said, the use
of wingbacks as defenders served only to make the U's midfield outnumbered.
As a result, Coventry played the crisper football but the U's defence limited Adebola, and Suffo to half
chances, including a good turn and shot by Adebola which zipped just wide, and a fizzing cross-cum-shot
by McAllister that Robinson headed behind.  There was a vague moment of excitement as Townsley and
goalkeeper Shearer challenged for the ball in the 6-yard box, the ball was spilled, but Shearer was able
to recover .
As the half wore down Oxford began to find their feet and finally there was the odd example of the wingbacks
actually attacking. A Robinson cross was headed wide by Alsop, before Adebola responded by doing exactly
the same thing to a McAllister cross. Obviously encouraged by this the former Crewe striker began to
put himself about a little more and the result was Scott McNiven departing with a cut head to be replace
by the unknown and unheralded West Ham triallist Ezy Iriekpen who did little more than annoy my spell
checker and score a good penalty at the end.
A strong run into the box by Adebola forcing a good save from Woodman, before McAllister decided to do the job himself by having a header well saved. Alsop finished the half with a turn and shot that sneaked
just wide.
The second half saw the usual pointless substitutions but the most notable change was for United to alter
formation to 4 4 2 presumably to accommodate Iriekpen.
The impact was marginally more open game but sadly, no goals!!
Coventry's best chance of the game came on 48 minutes when Suffo beat Iriekpen on the left before cutting in
and shooting. His shot was palmed up and on to the post by Woodman and the goalkeeper was fortunate to be able to catch the rebound.
The U's looked slightly more at ease in the new formation and began to exert some pressure, on the
visitors box. Whitehead saw his shot blocked and Alsop stabbed the rebound wide.
Widdrington chopped down Safri and in a normal game should have been booked, but he soon departed in
favour of Fitzroy Simpson who despite having a first club of distinctly dubious nature, looked far more
lively and incisive.
Iriekpen's poor afternoon continued as his missed header ran to Hall who fired just wide with Woodman
utterly beaten. Oxford were showing good spirit and a surging Townsley run found Whitehead who in typically
direct style fired in a shot that Shearer could only palm away. Basham followed up, and the ball dribbled
away for a corner.
The pace of Hackett and Rawle were introduced, to run at a tiring defence, and a mistake by Davenport
allowed Rawle a clear run. He could and, in all probably should, have gone for goal but tried to
square to Alsop but the pass was woefully short, and a good chance was lost.
As normal time wound down Hackett and Rawle gave the Coventry defence a few questions , and Crosby got in an important tackle in on Noon but in truth penalties had looked likely for a long time.
The penalty shootout is reproduced below for all the completists, but the notable moments were Noon's
appalling attempt at a chip, and the first time I've seen Crosby fail to convert one. Has anyone ever seen
a shootout where all of the players had to take a kick?  By then though, we'd learned all there was to
learn from this encounter.
(Which was?)
The Shootout

Oxford                                               
             Coventry

Crosby missed( No Rosie-Not Malcolm)                                      
            Safri scored
Robinson scored                                   
            Warnock missed
Alsop missed                                         
             Noon missed
Simpson scored                                     
             Konjic scored
Hunt scored                                          
             Mansouri scored
................................................................................................
Rawle scored                                         
             Hall scored
Bound scored                                         
             Jephcott scored
Scott scored                                         
             Mahouve scored
Iriekpen scored                                      
             Shearer scored
Hackett scored                                       
             Davenport scored
Woodman missed                                   
             Wearneart scored

Attendance 2,808 (752 away)