Oxford United suffered a third league loss of the season with a 1-0 defeat at high-flying Birmingham.
The last time the U’s suffered three defeats at the start of the season came in the 2018/19 campaign.
Here are three talking points from the game.
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Oxford United Lose at Birmingham
Defensive Formation
Having failed with a 4-4-2 in the previous two league games, Gary Rowett switched to a back five for the visit to St. Andrew’s.
Jamie Cumming stayed in goal but he had a back three of Brodie Spencer, Michal Helik and Sam Long. Rowett also saw Hidde ter Avest and Greg Leigh selected as attacking wing-backs.
The big call was to leave club captain Elliott Moore on the bench, but his replacement in Long was arguably Oxford’s best player in defence.
On the whole, the backline looked ok but the wing-backs didn’t offer a lot in the final third.
De Keersmaecker Debut
Another positive was a league debut for record signing, Brian De Keersmaecker.
The Belgian midfielder, who missed the start of the campaign with injury, put in a decent display in the middle of the park alongside Cameron Brannagan.
The 25-year-old got stuck in, helped his side up the pitch and had a good energy for the most part, but ran out of steam in the second half due to lack of minutes.
Birmingham Wasted Chances
While it was only a narrow defeat on paper, the hosts could, and probably should, have been out of sight by half time.
Summer signing Kyōgo Furuhashi squandered two early chances; first shooting wide when one-on-one with Cumming before nodding a header over from inside the six-yard box.
And there were further chances for the hosts across the 90 but Cumming was barely tested between the sticks.
While the football under Rowett is conservative, he does keep his sides within games and that can be taken as a positive.
