{"id":651717,"date":"2025-02-05T00:00:51","date_gmt":"2025-02-05T05:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?p=651717"},"modified":"2025-02-04T17:00:24","modified_gmt":"2025-02-04T22:00:24","slug":"three-talking-points-oxford-united-lose-burnley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2025\/02\/05\/three-talking-points-oxford-united-lose-burnley\/","title":{"rendered":"Three Talking Points as Oxford United Lose at Burnley"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oxford United<\/a> suffered a first league defeat under Gary Rowett as the U’s lost 1-0<\/a> at Burnley.<\/p>\n

A Michal Helik own-goal on 32 minutes was the difference between the two sides at Turf Moor.<\/p>\n

Here are three talking points from the game.<\/p>\n

Oxford United Lose at Burnley<\/h2>\n

Line-Up<\/h3>\n

Rowett made four changes from the side that drew against Bristol City last time out.<\/p>\n

Jamie Cumming started in goal behind a back four of Greg Leigh, Ciaron Brown, Helik and Sam Long, with the latter replacing Peter Kioso in defence.<\/p>\n

Will Vaulks and Cameron Brannagan continued in the double pivot but Alex Matos was handed his first Oxford start in place of Ruben Rodrigues.<\/p>\n

Tyler Goodrham was another returnee, replacing Siriki Dembele with Przemyslaw Placheta on the right, with the final change coming up top as Tom Bradshaw was selected over Mark Harris.<\/p>\n

Rowett was busy with his substitutes. Dembele got 45 minutes and Harris came back in for Bradshaw, while Matt Phillips, Idris el Mizouni and Ole Romeny all entered in the latter stages.<\/p>\n

It was also a terrific performance from Matos, who continued his impressive display when he dropped back into a deeper role.<\/p>\n

Narrow Defence<\/h3>\n

It was always going to be tricky against Burnley’s wingers in Lyle Foster and Jaiden Anthony, but Long and Leigh were often far too narrow, which allowed them plenty of space.<\/p>\n

Burnley often got themselves to the byline and pinged balls into the box – and this is how their winner came as Helik was unfortunate to turn the ball into his own net.<\/p>\n

However, it could have been worse but for Cumming, who made several top-class stops to keep the scoreline respectable on the evening.<\/p>\n

Decision-Making and Final Ball<\/h3>\n

Oxford got themselves into some good positions at times but often lacked a final ball of quality.<\/p>\n

The U’s had seven attempts on goal but not one forced James Trafford into a save on a wet and windy night at Turf Moor.<\/p>\n

Bradshaw saw an early effort sail wide, Placheta smashed one over and Leigh saw a close header miss the target from a corner.<\/p>\n

After the break, chances were few and far between for Oxford, and it was a combination of poor choices when on the ball and a resilient and well-organised Burnley defence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Oxford United suffered a first league defeat under Gary Rowett as the U’s lost 1-0 at Burnley. A Michal Helik own-goal on 32 minutes was the difference between the two sides at Turf Moor. Here are three talking points from the game. Oxford United Lose at Burnley Line-Up Rowett made four changes from the side […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":335,"featured_media":651418,"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":[8430,10,33,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-651717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-oxford-united","category-burnley","category-championship","category-league-football"],"modified_by":"Dale Ventham, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651717","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=651717"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651717\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":651719,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651717\/revisions\/651719"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/651418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=651717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=651717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=651717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}