{"id":649911,"date":"2025-01-01T00:00:17","date_gmt":"2025-01-01T05:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?p=649911"},"modified":"2025-01-01T02:36:37","modified_gmt":"2025-01-01T07:36:37","slug":"oxford-united-december-des-buckingham-gary-rowett","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2025\/01\/01\/oxford-united-december-des-buckingham-gary-rowett\/","title":{"rendered":"Oxford United December Round-Up: Losing Streak, Manager Replacement and Vital Wins"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was a turbulent month for Oxford United<\/a> with three successive defeats seeing the U’s drop into the bottom three for the first time.<\/p>\n

Following a poor run of results, the board opted to part company with head coach, Des Buckingham, who was replaced soon after by Gary Rowett.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

Oxford United December Round-Up: Three Losses Results in Buckingham Being Booted; Rowett Replacement<\/h2>\n

Poor Run Continues<\/h3>\n

Oxford were due to start the month with a trip to Plymouth<\/a> but the game against Wayne Rooney’s side was postponed due to severe weather conditions.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the break didn’t help as the U’s lost 2-0 at QPR<\/a>. Despite a decent first half, two defensive errors gifted the R’s a comfortable win at Loftus Road, plundering the U’s deep into a relegation battle.<\/p>\n

Another game and another defeat as Oxford lost at home against Sheffield Wednesday<\/a>. Greg Leigh gave the U’s the lead in what was a decent first half display but the Owls levelled before the break and added a second just after the restart. As soon as they netted a third, it was game over.<\/p>\n

Then came the news that no Oxford fan was expecting to read as the club decided to part ways with Des Buckingham. The Oxford-born head coach had been in charge of the club for just over a year and led the club to promotion to the second tier for the first time in 25 years.<\/p>\n

The board acted quickly (so to speak) in replacing Buckingham with experienced Championship manager, Gary Rowett. The 50-year-old penned a “long-term” deal and was in the dugout when the U’s welcomed Cardiff on Boxing Day.<\/p>\n

As a result, he watched from the stands as Oxford were thumped 4-0 at Leeds<\/a>. The hosts dominated the 90 but only had a one-goal lead at the break. However, the Whites showed the class after the restart and added a further three goals.<\/p>\n

Rowett Revival<\/h3>\n

Rowett took to the stands for the first time on Boxing Day and picked up a vital three points with a win over Cardiff<\/a>. Mark Harris opened the scoring before second-half goals from Ciaron Brown and Przemyslaw Placheta put the U’s in a comfortable position. However, Cardiff netted twice late on which took some of the gloss of what was a decent display at Grenoble Road.<\/p>\n

The U’s followed that up with another three points against another relegation rival in Plymouth<\/a>. Brown headed home his second goal in as many games before Placheta got on the scoresheet again after a swift counter-attack.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was a turbulent month for Oxford United with three successive defeats seeing the U’s drop into the bottom three for the first time. Following a poor run of results, the board opted to part company with head coach, Des Buckingham, who was replaced soon after by Gary Rowett.\u00a0 Oxford United December Round-Up: Three Losses […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":335,"featured_media":649733,"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":[8430,2509,33,32,6443],"tags":[1537],"class_list":["post-649911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-oxford-united","category-cardiff-city","category-championship","category-league-football","category-leeds-united","tag-gary-rowett"],"modified_by":"Dale Ventham, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649911","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=649911"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649911\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":650061,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649911\/revisions\/650061"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/649733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=649911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=649911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=649911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}