{"id":660612,"date":"2025-10-19T13:08:53","date_gmt":"2025-10-19T17:08:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?p=660612"},"modified":"2025-10-19T13:08:54","modified_gmt":"2025-10-19T17:08:54","slug":"oxford-united-stadium-approval-derby-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2025\/10\/19\/oxford-united-stadium-approval-derby-win\/","title":{"rendered":"Oxford United Weekly Round-Up: Stadium Approval, Derby Win and Backroom Changes\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

A positive week for Oxford United<\/a> both on and off the pitch. The club are closer to securing a new stadium while they also picked up their first home win of the season.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, there have been some changes in the backroom staff and there was a welcome return to the pitch for a key player.<\/p>\n

Read More: <\/strong>Three Talking Points as Oxford United Win Against Derby<\/a><\/p>\n

Oxford United Weekly Round-Up: Stadium Approval, Derby Victory and Backroom Changes<\/h2>\n

Secretary of State Approves Oxford Stadium Move<\/h3>\n

On Wednesday, Oxford received the important information that the Secretary of State will not “call-in” the decision to grant the club planning permission for the new stadium.<\/p>\n

This means the government decided there is no need for any further review, clearing a major hurdle for the project and all-but confirming the work to begin.<\/p>\n

Cherwell District Council will now work on finalising the Section 106 agreement setting out the contributions Oxford United will make to support local infrastructure before construction can begin.<\/p>\n

In a statement<\/a>, Chairman Grant Ferguson said: “The government review was conducted after Cherwell District Council\u2019s Planning Committee approved the plans on 14 August.<\/p>\n

“The Secretary of State\u2019s decision not to call in the planning application for our 16,000-capacity stadium on land north of the city means the Club can now begin to deliver on its vision.<\/p>\n

“On behalf of everyone at Oxford United, I would like to thank all of our supporters, along with the incredible project team who have been instrumental in getting us to this point.”<\/p>\n

Backroom Changes<\/h3>\n

On Friday, Oxford announced two key appointments within the club’s backroom staff.<\/p>\n

Isaac Alder, who joined the club in 2018 as First Team Performance Analyst, was promoted to Head of Analysis while Matt Willmott joined the club as Head of Athletic Performance.<\/p>\n

Willmott had previously worked with MK Dons, Leicester and Swansea, and more recently held roles with the Football Association of Wales as a Physical Performance Coach and with PGMOL as Lead Physical Performance Coach.<\/p>\n

The duo replace Joe Moore and Luke Taylor who have rejoined former head coach Des Buckingham in Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n

First Home Win<\/h3>\n

Oxford ended a positive week with a positive result on the pitch as the U’s won 1-0 at home against Derby.<\/p>\n

Stan Mills netted the only goal of the game in the first half but in truth, they should have been out of sight by the break.<\/p>\n

And that continued in the second 45 with the Rams goalkeeper keeping the visitors in the game.<\/p>\n

Despite squandering chances, it was an important win and just the second clean sheet of the season.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Featured image courtesy of IMAGO \/ Pro Sports Images<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A positive week for Oxford United both on and off the pitch. The club are closer to securing a new stadium while they also picked up their first home win of the season. Elsewhere, there have been some changes in the backroom staff and there was a welcome return to the pitch for a key […]<\/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-660612","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\/660612","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=660612"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660612\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":660616,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660612\/revisions\/660616"}],"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=660612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=660612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=660612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}