Alex Gorrin-shaped hole costs Oxford dearly in Portsmouth defeat

As an unmarked Harvey White crashed home his first career goal to secure Portsmouth a 1-0 win at the Kassam Stadium, it was hard not to think Alex Gorrin would have done something about it had he been on the pitch.

Tottenham loanee White had found an inch of space in the Oxford penalty area only minutes into the second-half to head home the winning goal from 12 yards, and it was exactly the sort of situation that Gorrin regularly defends so well when he is stationed at the base of the Yellows’ midfield.

So far this season, Gorrin is averaging the fifth most tackles per 90 of any midfielder in League One, as well as the most interceptions of any midfield player currently playing in the division.

He has become a vital cog in the Oxford engine room, not only due to his defensive capabilities but also thanks to his quality on the ball in a possession-heavy side.

It is fair to say in recent weeks he has not been at his best though. A tendency to pick up bookings – 11 in 31 appearances last season, seven in 21 so far this campaign – can often leave him walking a disciplinary tightrope that inhibits the destructive aspect of his game.

This was particularly true in the 3-2 defeat at Doncaster at the start of the month, in which Gorrin was easily nutmegged by Taylor Richards en route to the Brighton loanee scoring what turned out to be the game’s winning goal.

He was also substituted in just the 62nd minute of the goalless draw at Ipswich on Saturday as a first-half yellow card meant head coach Karl Robinson decided he could not risk Gorrin being sent off as he plotted a route to victory.

It was therefore no real surprise to see the Spanish midfielder on the bench for the visit of Portsmouth on Tuesday night, although Robinson explained before the game that Gorrin had not done anything wrong, it was simply a case of rotating weary legs amid a packed fixture schedule.

Cameron Brannagan dropped from his regular, more advanced midfield role into what the Oxford head coach regularly describes as the ‘number six’ position in front of the back four that Gorrin usually occupies.

The Liverpool academy graduate had a perfectly fine game, as Robinson attested to in his post-match interview, but the man-marking job done on him by Portsmouth’s front two of Ellis Harrison and Ronan Curtis severely stunted Oxford building up through the middle in an unsurprisingly tentative re-match of last season’s Play-Off Semi-Final.

The last four meetings between Oxford and Pompey had finished 1-1, often being cagey, tempestuous affairs, and this one looked like following the script as neither team fashioned anything more than half-chances for much of the 90 minutes.

Tensions began to increase steadily throughout, and the visitors’ mercurial Irish forward Ronan Curtis was lucky to not pick up a second booking for pulling the shirt of Brannagan after the Oxford man had been fortunate himself not to see red for an altercation with Marcus Harness.

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A rare glimpse of the type of edge-of-the-seat midfield combination play that Robinson’s side are capable of was shown fleetingly in the 20th minute when Elliott Lee flicked an Elliott Moore pass around the corner for James Henry, whose powerful shot was beaten away by Portsmouth goalkeeper Craig MacGillivray.

Once that brief moment of excitement passed, the game began to look more and more likely to be decided by fine margins, and it was Portsmouth and White who exploited one just two minutes into the second-half.

White found himself in just the sort of space that Gorrin usually defends so effectively, off the back of Brannagan, to steer home a fantastic delivery from team-mate Callum Johnson and ultimately secure the three points for stand-in manager Joe Gallen as Kenny Jackett continues to recover from an operation.

Whilst we will never truly know if Gorrin would have prevented the goal from being scored had he been on the pitch, the effect of Brannagan dropping deeper, until the Tenerife-born midfielder was introduced in the 65th minute, seemingly stunted the interplay that went a long way to making Oxford so successful over the winter months.

Recent weeks have seen the Yellows struggle to connect the possession their back four regularly have with the ever-threatening front three, resulting in the number of clear-cut chances they create somewhat drying up.

Mark Sykes had a quiet evening on the left of the midfield trio against Pompey, and even though Henry threatened with his ability to shoot from range, he does not have quite the mobility nor the athleticism to drive through the challenges and disrupt opposition defensive lines.

Brannagan can often create opportunities thanks not only to his ability on the ball but due to his intelligent movement in the final third that can regularly stretch defences and create space for others.

Wingers Olamide Shodipo and Brandon Barker ended up dropping incredibly deep in order to get on the ball to try and make things happen.

They are both very talented dribblers and capable of producing moments of magic from anywhere on the field, yet they arguably would have had been more effective had they been able to collect the ball one v one with the opposition full-backs in advanced areas.

The return of Nottingham Forest loanee Marcus McGuane looked as though it could be the ideal remedy to Oxford’s midfield ills.

The England youth international showed a regular capacity to collect the ball in central areas before breezing past challenges to set up goal-scoring chances during Oxford’s club-record nine game-winning run.

Unfortunately, it was announced just hours before kick-off against Portsmouth that a complication of the thigh injury he picked up against Bristol Rovers midway through January may well keep him out for the rest of the season.

Oxford rallied late on against Portsmouth, and a collection of goalmouth scrambles very nearly rescued a point, but it was noticeable that opportunities to score only materialised when Matty Taylor was thrown on to partner Sam Winnall upfront and the home team adopted a more direct approach.

Despite the disappointing result and a third consecutive defeat in all competitions that his side have failed to score in, Robinson remained defiant after the final whistle.

“This run that we’ve been on was immense (of 9 wins in 11 before the Portsmouth game). If we’d have lost one or two of those nine games and we’d have won today everybody would be saying ‘is the race (for the play-offs) back on?’

“We’re in this, we’re in this race. No more have I been certain than after today’s game.

“They (Portsmouth) are in the top four and they are no better than us, that’s the reality of it. We were two very even teams. If they had blown us away and won 3 or 4-0, I would be sitting here saying we are a little way off the top echelons of the league, but we’re not.

“We’ve got big games coming up so we’ll have to challenge ourselves in them.”

As true as his words may be, Oxford are still on the outside looking in on the Play-Offs after the gap between themselves and the top six extended to five points, and with games against Peterborough, Charlton, Doncaster and Lincoln coming up, Robinson could really do with finding a way to rekindle the spark in midfield that was such a catalyst for his side’s upturn in form over the festive period.

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