{"id":654429,"date":"2025-05-06T08:26:54","date_gmt":"2025-05-06T12:26:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?p=654429"},"modified":"2025-05-06T08:26:54","modified_gmt":"2025-05-06T12:26:54","slug":"oxford-united-season-review-championship-survival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2025\/05\/06\/oxford-united-season-review-championship-survival\/","title":{"rendered":"Oxford United Season Review: Change of Management Results in Championship Survival"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oxford United<\/a> had a mixed bag in their first season in the second tier for 25 years, which was unsurprising.<\/p>\n

Des Buckingham oversaw some promising results and pleasing performances in the early parts of the campaign but a run of just one win in 16 resulted in his controversial departure<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Gary Rowett<\/a> replaced the Oxford-born head coach and saw an immediate upturn in results, but with other sides at the wrong end of the table also picking up points, it meant for a nervy end to the campaign.<\/p>\n

Oxford United Season Review: Change of Management Ensures Championship Survival<\/h2>\n

Bright Start Under Buckingham<\/h3>\n

Having secured an unexpected return to the Championship after a playoff victory over Bolton at Wembley, many pundits expected Buckingham’s side to finish rock bottom of the second tier.<\/p>\n

However, the U’s picked up an impressive 2-0 win over Norwich on the opening day with a good result and performance at Grenoble Road.<\/p>\n

Narrow defeats at Coventry and Blackburn followed but further home wins over Preston and Stoke were pleasing for supporters.<\/p>\n

Defeat at Bristol City began the poor run of form and despite home draws against Burnley and West Brom, Oxford were starting to struggle.<\/p>\n

Poor Form Costs Buckingham His Oxford United Job<\/h3>\n

The one win came at home against fellow strugglers Hull and while it was Oxford that picked up the three points, Hull were the better team at Grenoble Road.<\/p>\n

The U’s lost at Bristol City and Sunderland before a first home defeat of the season against Swansea. Three successive losses against Watford, Middlesbrough and Sheffield United, while conceding ten goals, didn’t help before Buckingham saw his side suffer further defeats against QPR and Sheffield Wednesday.<\/p>\n

As a result, the hometown hero was reluctantly dismissed. Many fans expressed their dissatisfaction at the board for making the decision but in hindsight, it was a smart move.<\/p>\n

Gary Rowett – Championship Survival<\/h3>\n

In came experienced Championship manager, Gary Rowett. The former Birmingham, Derby, Stoke and Millwall manager watched from the stands as Oxford dropped into the bottom three for the first time with a 4-0 thumping at eventual champions, Leeds.<\/p>\n

But his start was impressive. Eight games without defeat, including home wins over Cardiff and Plymouth before a first away win of the campaign at Millwall. He even won Manager of the Month for January.<\/p>\n

There was a patch of poor form with the U’s failing to win in nine, but Oxford failed to lose a game by more than one goal (besides the West Brom and Portsmouth fixtures when Oxford were chasing an equaliser in stoppage time).<\/p>\n

This method of keeping games tight helped. Narrow wins over Watford, Sheffield United and Sheffield Wednesday followed before a draw at Cardiff and win at home against Sunderland on the penultimate weekend of the campaign ensured their survival.<\/p>\n

The U’s ended the season with an entertaining 3-3 draw at Swansea but the result was irrelevant as Rowett had secured Championship survival.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Oxford United had a mixed bag in their first season in the second tier for 25 years, which was unsurprising. Des Buckingham oversaw some promising results and pleasing performances in the early parts of the campaign but a run of just one win in 16 resulted in his controversial departure. Gary Rowett replaced the Oxford-born […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":335,"featured_media":652203,"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":[],"class_list":["post-654429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-oxford-united","category-championship","category-league-football"],"modified_by":"Dale Ventham, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654429","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=654429"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654429\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":654432,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654429\/revisions\/654432"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/652203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=654429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=654429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=654429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}