{"id":660741,"date":"2025-10-23T02:00:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-23T06:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?p=660741"},"modified":"2025-10-22T18:08:49","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T22:08:49","slug":"three-talking-points-oxford-united-lose-wrexham","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2025\/10\/23\/three-talking-points-oxford-united-lose-wrexham\/","title":{"rendered":"Three Talking Points as Oxford United Lose at Wrexham"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oxford United<\/a> failed to capitalise on their win over Derby as the U’s lost 1-0 on the road against Wrexham.<\/p>\n

Gary Rowett’s side struggled to get into the game after the hosts took the lead inside 15 minutes and were unable to take advantage when the Red Dragons were reduced to ten men in the second half.<\/p>\n

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

Read More<\/strong>: Team News, Form and Predicted<\/a> Line-Up as Oxford United Travel to Wrexham<\/p>\n

Oxford United Lose at Wrexham<\/h2>\n

Same Team, Different Outcome<\/h3>\n

Having eased past Derby in their most recent fixture, it was unsurprising to see Rowett name an unchanged side.<\/p>\n

However, the U’s were on the back foot for the first half an hour and struggled to create any meaningful chances in the opening 45.<\/p>\n

Wrexham took the lead when on top inside 15 minutes when the ball narrowly crossed the line from a set piece and the hosts were comfortable throughout.<\/p>\n

Rowett made a switch at the break with Will Lankshear replacing Stan Mills, but it wasn’t until the hosts were reduced to ten men that Oxford started to get a slight foothold on the game.<\/p>\n

However, they failed to take advantage during their positive spell, despite Lankshear striking the bar, in what was a lacklustre display at the Racecourse Ground.<\/p>\n

Ten-Man Wrexham<\/h3>\n

For the second time this season, the U’s failed to capitalise when the opposing team was reduced to ten men.<\/p>\n

Against Leicester, Oxford played over an hour with a man advantage but still drew the game at Grenoble Road, and it was similar here.<\/p>\n

The U’s had a brief spell where they had more of the ball but Wrexham were well disciplined in defence and Rowett’s side were unable to break them down.<\/p>\n

The subs made little impact and it was the depleted Devils that looked the most likely team to score a second goal, with Jamie Cumming forced into action late on.<\/p>\n

Lack of Midfield Input<\/h3>\n

Against Derby, Rowett tweaked the midfield with Will Vaulks coming in to add protection to the back four and allow Cameron Brannagan and Brian De Keersmaecker to create more in the final third, but the trio couldn’t get going in North Wales.<\/p>\n

Wrexham simply suffocated the Oxford midfield, so much so that the half-time change saw Vaulks drop into defence as part of a back three.<\/p>\n

Every time Brannagan or De Keersmaecker got hold of the ball, Wrexham sat in a low block and prevented the U’s from getting through, so, as a result, chances were few and far between.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

Oxford United failed to capitalise on their win over Derby as the U’s lost 1-0 on the road against Wrexham. Gary Rowett’s side struggled to get into the game after the hosts took the lead inside 15 minutes and were unable to take advantage when the Red Dragons were reduced to ten men in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":335,"featured_media":660744,"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":[3055],"class_list":["post-660741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-oxford-united","category-championship","category-league-football","tag-wrexham"],"modified_by":"Dale Ventham, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660741","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=660741"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660741\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":660745,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660741\/revisions\/660745"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/660744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=660741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=660741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=660741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}