{"id":652822,"date":"2025-03-16T00:00:13","date_gmt":"2025-03-16T04:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?p=652822"},"modified":"2025-03-15T14:13:43","modified_gmt":"2025-03-15T18:13:43","slug":"three-talking-points-oxford-united-win-watford","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2025\/03\/16\/three-talking-points-oxford-united-win-watford\/","title":{"rendered":"Three Talking Points as Oxford United Win Against Watford"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oxford United<\/a> picked up their first win in ten with a 1-0 victory at home against Watford.<\/p>\n

Siriki Dembele netted his first Oxford goal in the final ten minutes to secure a vital three points.<\/p>\n

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

Oxford United Win Against Watford<\/h2>\n

Attacking Changes to Starting Line-Up<\/h3>\n

Gary Rowett was left frustrated with how his side threw away the lead to lose at Hull on Wednesday night and he made five changes for this game.<\/p>\n

Ben Nelson was the defensive change at the back for the injured Elliott Moore but there was a welcome return to the midfield for Cameron Brannagan.<\/p>\n

Przemyslaw Placheta, Ole Romeny and Dembele all came in for the trio of Stan Mills, Ruben Rodrigues and Matt Phillips, who struggled on the Humber.<\/p>\n

Ups and Downs of Oxford United Wingers<\/h3>\n

Following on from the previous point, the wingers were far more involved than at Hull, but not always for the better.<\/p>\n

The duo got on the ball often but largely struggled to get past a well-organised Watford defence despite the intent being there.<\/p>\n

When they did get past, crosses were often played into dangerous areas but Harris and Romeny hadn’t anticipated the delivery.<\/p>\n

At the break, many contacted BBC Radio Oxford saying that Dembele, in particular, should be taken off, but Rowett stuck with his personnel and system, and it eventually paid off.<\/p>\n

Dembele had a decent chance after the break, bringing down a Placheta cross while the latter also saw an attempt saved by the goalkeeper.<\/p>\n

But the goalscorer did well when he did, bringing down a Harris flick before cutting inside and smashing home his first U’s goal.<\/p>\n

Clean Sheet<\/h3>\n

Getting the three points was the main target at Grenoble Road but keeping a first clean sheet in six was a massive bonus.<\/p>\n

In recent games against Bristol City and Coventry, the U’s have conceded shortly after scoring themselves, so maintaining discipline in the final ten minutes was key to ensuring the result.<\/p>\n

Now, Oxford will need to return from the international break with confidence from the result and shutout.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Oxford United picked up their first win in ten with a 1-0 victory at home against Watford. Siriki Dembele netted his first Oxford goal in the final ten minutes to secure a vital three points. Here are three talking points from the game. Oxford United Win Against Watford Attacking Changes to Starting Line-Up Gary Rowett […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":335,"featured_media":649558,"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":[8430,33,32,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-652822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-oxford-united","category-championship","category-league-football","category-watford"],"modified_by":"Dale Ventham, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652822","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=652822"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652822\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":652825,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652822\/revisions\/652825"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/649558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=652822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=652822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=652822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}