{"id":535409,"date":"2019-10-17T06:55:17","date_gmt":"2019-10-17T10:55:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonfootball.com\/?p=535409"},"modified":"2019-10-17T06:55:17","modified_gmt":"2019-10-17T10:55:17","slug":"tough-away-trip-as-oxford-united-face-rotherham-united","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2019\/10\/17\/tough-away-trip-as-oxford-united-face-rotherham-united\/","title":{"rendered":"Tough Away Trip as Oxford United Face Rotherham United"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>High flying <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonfootball.com\/2019\/10\/13\/oxford-united-impressive-again-with-win-over-doncaster-rovers\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Oxford United<\/a> face a difficult task this weekend when they travel to <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonfootball.com\/2019\/04\/28\/efl-penultimate-weekend-rotherham-united-and-yeovil-town-relegated\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Rotherham United<\/a> in League One. The U&#8217;s are currently on a tremendous eight-game unbeaten run but came unstuck on their last away game &#8211; a 2-2 draw at <a href=\"https:\/\/oxford.vitalfootball.co.uk\/match-report-league-one-accrington-stanley-2-2-oxford-united\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Accrington Stanley<\/a>. Rotherham, who sit just one point behind Oxford, have won their last two league games, with their last home result an impressive 4-0 win over Coventry City.<\/p>\n<h2>Oxford United Face Rotherham United Away From Home<\/h2>\n<h3>Two Top Teams do Battle<\/h3>\n<p>Rotherham have lost just three league games this season, and have the third-best defence in the division.<\/p>\n<p>That said, <a href=\"https:\/\/oxford.vitalfootball.co.uk\/match-report-league-one-oxford-united-3-0-doncaster-rovers\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Doncaster Rovers<\/a> headed into their match with Oxford with the third-best defence before conceding three goals at the Kassam Stadium last weekend.<\/p>\n<p>The Millers will be looking for an immediate return to the Championship following their relegation last season, while the U&#8217;s are currently showing promotion form, and will look to continue this impressive run.<\/p>\n<h3>Team News, Past Meetings and Prediction<\/h3>\n<p>Oxford are without two crucial players through injury in <a href=\"https:\/\/oxford.vitalfootball.co.uk\/us-dealt-another-injury-blow\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ben Woodburn<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/oxford.vitalfootball.co.uk\/robinson-gives-injury-update-2\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Anthony Forde<\/a>, while <a href=\"https:\/\/oxford.vitalfootball.co.uk\/on-loan-midfielder-ruled-out-until-january\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">George Thorne<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/oxford.vitalfootball.co.uk\/oxford-lose-midfielder-for-three-months\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jamie Hanson<\/a> also remain sidelined. However, there should be a return for <a href=\"https:\/\/oxford.vitalfootball.co.uk\/taylor-ready-to-return\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Matty Taylor<\/a> who missed last week&#8217;s win over Doncaster through illness.<\/p>\n<p>Oxford are also without Rob Dickie after the defender picked up his fifth yellow card of the season last weekend. They have some in-form midfielders, with <a href=\"https:\/\/oxford.vitalfootball.co.uk\/i-feel-like-we-can-do-something-this-year-henry-eyes-promotion\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">James Henry<\/a> taking his goal tally to eight goals following his brace against Doncaster, while <a href=\"https:\/\/oxford.vitalfootball.co.uk\/opinion-brannagan-showing-enough-leadership-credentials-to-become-captain\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Cameron Brannagan<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/oxford.vitalfootball.co.uk\/opinion-oxford-united-have-one-of-the-best-midfield-around\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Tariqe Fosu<\/a> have seven and five goals respectively.<\/p>\n<p>Clark Robertson and Michael Ihiekwe have formed a solid centre back partnership for the Millers, with the former also finding the net on one occasion.<\/p>\n<p>Ben Wiles has scored twice and added two assists from midfield, while winger Jake Hastie has already netted three from five games while on loan from Rangers.<\/p>\n<p>Freddie Ladapo is the key man up front for Rotherham and has four goals from 12 outings, with three in the league.<\/p>\n<p>In 27 meetings between the two sides, both teams have ten wins each and have played out seven draws.<\/p>\n<p>The two sides didn&#8217;t play against each other last season as the Millers were in the Championship, but the season before, the two sides played out a 3-3 draw at the Kassam, with Rotherham winning this fixture 3-1.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Prediction: Rotherham United 1-2 Oxford United<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Main Photo<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"w7wY4jsVSFNUEujov8K8Ag\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.co.uk\/detail\/1180003167\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'w7wY4jsVSFNUEujov8K8Ag',sig:'2tGWYic1IlcAEmpUS2yO9ghvd-GTg3wQ-bY_yGseVfk=',w:'594px',h:'416px',items:'1180003167',caption: true ,tld:'co.uk',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>High flying Oxford United face a difficult task this weekend when they travel to Rotherham United in League One. The U&#8217;s are currently on a tremendous eight-game unbeaten run but came unstuck on their last away game &#8211; a 2-2 draw at Accrington Stanley. Rotherham, who sit just one point behind Oxford, have won their [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":335,"featured_media":535424,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[32,34],"tags":[1742,3633,188,243,927,136],"class_list":["post-535409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-league-football","category-league12","tag-cameron-brannagan","tag-james-henry","tag-league-one","tag-oxford-united","tag-rotherham-united","tag-world-football"],"modified_by":"Nat Goodlad, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/335"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=535409"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535409\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/535424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=535409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=535409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=535409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}