{"id":657681,"date":"2025-08-03T13:51:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-03T17:51:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?p=657681"},"modified":"2025-08-03T13:51:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-03T17:51:07","slug":"oxford-united-nik-prelec-pre-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2025\/08\/03\/oxford-united-nik-prelec-pre-season\/","title":{"rendered":"Oxford United Weekly Round-Up: Prelec Arrival, Spanish Double and Transfer Rumours"},"content":{"rendered":"

The final week before the new season kicks off and it featured two unbeaten friendlies for Oxford United<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, the U’s have been linked with further players and have brought in a striker from Italy.<\/p>\n

Read More<\/strong>: Slovenian Striker Nik Prelec Joins Oxford United\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

Oxford United Weekly Round-Up: Attacking Reinforcements, Pre-Season Victory and Transfer Rumours<\/h2>\n

U’s Linked With Former Sheffield Wednesday Man<\/h3>\n

On Monday, Sheffield Wednesday reporter Joe Crann<\/a> claimed Oxford were making a “big push” to try and sign Callum Paterson.<\/p>\n

The 30-year-old, who left Hillsborough following the expiration of his contract last month, was also attracting interest from League Two side, MK Dons.<\/p>\n

However, the Scotland international would join the Dons later that day.<\/p>\n

Draw Against Leganes<\/h3>\n

On Tuesday, Oxford played their penultimate pre-season friendly against recently-relegated La Liga side, Leganes.<\/p>\n

Tom Bradshaw put the U’s ahead but conceded from a set piece before the break, before the game fizzled out to a draw.<\/p>\n

There were minutes for Sam Long, Siriki Dembele and Stan Mills, but Gary Rowett has lost recent signing Luke Harris to injury, along with Przemyslaw Placheta and Michal Helik.<\/p>\n

Trialist Released<\/h3>\n

On Friday, head coach Gary Rowett confirmed that the club hadn’t kept hold of trialist, Allan Campbell.<\/p>\n

The 27-year-old turned out for the U’s in pre-season friendlies against Mansfield and Bristol Rovers but wasn’t named in the squad against Leganes.<\/p>\n

Rowett said<\/a>: \u201cWhat we spoke about for Allan, we didn\u2019t feel it was fair to keep him here for two or three weeks, and then potentially if we say at the end of that \u2018there\u2019s nothing for you\u2019, then of course that\u2019s not fair on him to have wasted that time.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was very good coming in, training, playing the two games. He\u2019s someone that I think would add something to the squad 100 per cent.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know all about him, but because we\u2019ve got quite a few injuries at the moment, and we\u2019ve had quite a few injuries since that decision, we\u2019ve just got to make sure that we get those decisions right.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prelec Joins Oxford United<\/h3>\n

On Saturday, Oxford confirmed the signing of Slovenian striker, Nik Prelec.<\/p>\n

The 24-year-old joined the U’s on a season-long loan from Serie A side Cagliari, but the club have an option to buy at the end of the campaign.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m really excited to get started, knowing I\u2019m going to be playing in the Championship with Oxford United,\u201d Prelec said upon signing<\/a>. \u201cThis is a big opportunity and chance for me in my career.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had some good conversations with the people in the club about the project and they really convinced me that this is the place to be.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is what I love. I put in everything I can every day to be better, and I feel ready for this move.<\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully the fans will see a lot of goals, work rate, and someone who fights for the team. I can\u2019t wait to get that first goal in front of the fans. I understand the Championship is a different challenge and I want to make my mark.\u201d<\/p>\n

Head coach, Gary Rowett, said: \u201cNik has a lot of strong qualities which makes this an exciting signing for the club.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is a quick and powerful presence up front, with a good goalscoring record in a highly competitive Austrian league.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe brings a really imposing threat to the top end of our team and has fantastic experience for his age. We hope he will be an important player and help to complement the rest of our team.\u201d<\/p>\n

U’s End Pre-Season With Win Over Spanish Side<\/h3>\n

Rowett’s side ended pre-season with a 3-0 victory over Spanish outfit, M\u00e1laga.<\/p>\n

The U’s took the lead through a Stan Mills header on 32 minutes before late goals from Cameron Brannagan and Elliott Moore secured the win.<\/p>\n

Oxford welcome Portsmouth in the Championship next Saturday.<\/p>\n

Oxford Interested in Liverpool Duo<\/h3>\n

Oxford are interested in a move for young Liverpool Duo, James McConnell and Lewis Koumas, according to the Liverpool Echo<\/a>.<\/p>\n

20-year-old midfielder McConnell has turned out 13 times for the Liverpool first team while forward Koumas has featured just once.<\/p>\n

However, Derby, Ipswich, Swansea and West Brom have also enquired about McConnell’s availability, while Birmingham, Hull, Norwich, Preston, Sheffield United and Wrexham have expressed an interest in Koumas, who scored six times while on loan at Stoke last season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The final week before the new season kicks off and it featured two unbeaten friendlies for Oxford United. Elsewhere, the U’s have been linked with further players and have brought in a striker from Italy. Read More: Slovenian Striker Nik Prelec Joins Oxford United\u00a0 Oxford United Weekly Round-Up: Attacking Reinforcements, Pre-Season Victory and Transfer Rumours […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":335,"featured_media":645923,"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-657681","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\/657681","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=657681"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657681\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":657684,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657681\/revisions\/657684"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/645923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=657681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=657681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=657681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}