{"id":653516,"date":"2025-04-10T00:00:41","date_gmt":"2025-04-10T04:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?p=653516"},"modified":"2025-04-09T17:07:20","modified_gmt":"2025-04-09T21:07:20","slug":"three-talking-points-oxford-united-lose-against-qpr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2025\/04\/10\/three-talking-points-oxford-united-lose-against-qpr\/","title":{"rendered":"Three Talking Points as Oxford United Lose Against QPR"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2025\/04\/07\/team-news-form-prediction-oxford-united-welcome-qpr\/\" target=\"_self\">Oxford United<\/a> failed to capitalise on their impressive win over Sheffield United with defeat at home against <a  href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/OUFCOfficial\/status\/1910072708055916704?t=a4xIaRSXhu7N5uAsTsEeVA&amp;s=19\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">QPR<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The U&#8217;s found themselves two goals down by the break largely in part to uncharacteristic defensive errors but did reduce the deficit in the second-half. However, QPR restored their two-goal lead in stoppage time with Oxford pushing for an equaliser.<\/p>\n<p>Here are three talking points from the game.<\/p>\n<h2>Oxford United Lose Against QPR<\/h2>\n<h3>Injury Blows<\/h3>\n<p>Gary Rowett named an unchanged side from the recent home wins over Watford and Sheffield United.<\/p>\n<p>However, they were dealt a blow inside 15 minutes when Ciaron Brown was forced off with injury, with Joe Bennett replacing the Northern Ireland international.<\/p>\n<p>After the restart, it was the other full-back to go off injured with Hidde ter Avest being forced out with a head injury.<\/p>\n<p>However, his replacement in Stan Mills reduced the deficit just moments after his introduction with a delicate header.<\/p>\n<h3>Uncharacteristic Defensive Mistakes and Sloppy Start<\/h3>\n<p>The first goal was a blow on two fronts &#8211; firstly, conceding after just seven minutes was far from ideal in what was dubbed as a &#8220;must-win&#8221; by many fans, but also how it went in, with a soft header from a corner fumbled in by Jamie Cumming.<\/p>\n<p>The second was also embarrassing, with a cross into the box causing confusion between the goalkeeper and Ole Romeny, who may have got the final touch himself.<\/p>\n<p>It summed up Oxford&#8217;s first half &#8211; sloppy, unorganised and poor. Fortunately the second half was much better but it was too little, too late.<\/p>\n<h3>Three Points From Two Games &#8211; Not the Way We Expected<\/h3>\n<p>After a win over Sheffield United last time out, this was seen as a bonus opportunity to add further points, but the U&#8217;s were unable to capitalise.<\/p>\n<p>Many fans expected nothing against the Blades and would have thought the three points would have come against the R&#8217;s. That said, those points are in the bag but just not in the way we expected.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Oxford United failed to capitalise on their impressive win over Sheffield United with defeat at home against QPR. The U&#8217;s found themselves two goals down by the break largely in part to uncharacteristic defensive errors but did reduce the deficit in the second-half. However, QPR restored their two-goal lead in stoppage time with Oxford pushing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":335,"featured_media":650845,"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],"tags":[279],"class_list":["post-653516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-oxford-united","category-championship","category-league-football","tag-qpr"],"modified_by":"Dale Ventham, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653516","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=653516"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653516\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":653519,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653516\/revisions\/653519"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/650845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=653516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=653516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=653516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}