{"id":630751,"date":"2023-10-17T09:36:08","date_gmt":"2023-10-17T13:36:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?p=630751"},"modified":"2023-10-17T09:36:08","modified_gmt":"2023-10-17T13:36:08","slug":"player-focus-greg-leigh-oxford-united","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2023\/10\/17\/player-focus-greg-leigh-oxford-united\/","title":{"rendered":"Player in Focus: Greg Leigh"},"content":{"rendered":"

Summer signing Greg Leigh has hit the ground running for Oxford United<\/a>. In seven appearances, the 29-year-old has scored four goals, added one assist and won the League One Player of the Month for September<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The left-back has also been recalled to the Jamaica national side, where he completed 90 minutes in both CONCACAF Nations League wins over Grenada and Haiti respectively.<\/p>\n

Greg Leigh: Player in Focus<\/h2>\n

League Form<\/h3>\n

Leigh made his Oxford United league debut as a substitute in a 2-1 win over Charlton. He made his full debut in a 2-1 defeat against Port Vale – a game which had everything. The defender thought he rescued a point with a 93rd-minute equaliser but was awarded a second yellow card just two minutes later before Vale netted a 99th-minute penalty.<\/p>\n

He would miss the win at Fleetwood due to suspension but returned as a wing-back in wins over Exeter and Stevenage<\/a>, with the Jamaican netting a brace in the latter.<\/p>\n

He scored again in a win over Shrewsbury before playing another full 90 in a resilient victory over Bristol Rovers.<\/p>\n

He has also given Liam Manning a selection headache. Ciaron Brown scooped two end-of-season awards last year but he has dislodged the Northern Ireland international at left back. Instead, Manning has been forced to play a back three in recent games to fit both players in.<\/p>\n

Player of the Month<\/h3>\n

For the second successive month, Oxford United were on the receiving end of an award from the EFL.<\/p>\n

In August, Liam Manning picked up Manager of the Month while Leigh was awarded Player of the Month for September.<\/p>\n

Three goals in three games and the addition of an assist mean the U’s left-back claimed the prize, becoming the first Oxford player to do so since Matty Taylor in February 2020.<\/p>\n

International Duty<\/h3>\n

Leigh hadn’t represented Jamaica since March 2022 before being recalled in October 2023.<\/p>\n

While he didn’t feature in games against Honduras or Haiti on matchday one or two, he made a return to the Reggae Boyz’ lineups and played the full 90 minutes in wins over Grenada and Haiti.<\/p>\n

He is clearly part of the plans, both domestically and internationally, as he looks to complete another brilliant season after gaining promotion to the Championship with Ipswich last year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Summer signing Greg Leigh has hit the ground running for Oxford United. In seven appearances, the 29-year-old has scored four goals, added one assist and won the League One Player of the Month for September. The left-back has also been recalled to the Jamaica national side, where he completed 90 minutes in both CONCACAF Nations […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":335,"featured_media":630752,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_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":[8430,32,34],"tags":[9984],"class_list":["post-630751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-oxford-united","category-league-football","category-league12","tag-greg-leigh"],"modified_by":"Dale Ventham, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630751","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=630751"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630751\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/630752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=630751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=630751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=630751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}