{"id":663507,"date":"2026-01-21T02:26:45","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T07:26:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?p=663507"},"modified":"2026-01-21T03:14:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T08:14:11","slug":"three-talking-points-oxford-united-draw-qpr-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2026\/01\/21\/three-talking-points-oxford-united-draw-qpr-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Three Talking Points as Oxford United Draw Against QPR"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oxford United<\/a> continue to search for a first win under Matt Bloomfield as the U’s played out a second successive goalless draw, this time against QPR.<\/p>\n

It was a scrappy game of football in tough conditions at Grenoble Road and while it’s a promising point, the gap to safety begins to grow.<\/p>\n

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

Read More<\/strong>: South Korea International Joins Oxford United\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

Oxford United Draw Against QPR<\/h2>\n

Long Shots<\/h3>\n

Oxford had eight shots on goal against the R’s with only one on target, although QPR had a similar story in front of goal with nine attempts and just two stops from Jamie Cumming.<\/p>\n

However, Oxford’s best chances all came from range as the struggles to work the ball in the box continue.<\/p>\n

Sam Long was presented with the first opportunity when Cameron Brannagan layed him off on the edge of the box but he fired just over.<\/p>\n

Shortly after, Stan Mills had an effort from outside the box but his attempt was wide, before Will Vaulks had a long-range effort which also failed to hit the target.<\/p>\n

In the second half, Vaulks saw a half volley from the edge of the box tipped over before Mills was presented with Oxford’s best chance but he sliced the ball over from four yards out from a good Myles Peart-Harris cross.<\/p>\n

Clean Sheet<\/h3>\n

While scoring was once again an issue, Bloomfield does appear to have strengthened the U’s as a defensive unit as they kept a second successive clean sheet.<\/p>\n

It was the same back four that drew against Bristol City last time out although Brodie Spencer replaced Michal Helik at the break with Long moving into the middle.<\/p>\n

Having kept just three clean sheets all season, the U’s have had two in successive games which again can only be seen as a positive.<\/p>\n

Sensible Substitutions<\/h3>\n

Against the Robins, Bloomfield only made two changes but in this fixture, he was more proactive.<\/p>\n

As mentioned, Helik was taken off at the break and Spencer added much more energy and attacking impetus from the right-back role.<\/p>\n

Will Lankshear and Mills has put one hell of a shift in so were replaced by Mark Harris and Matt Phillips although, as a result, they lost some pace after the changes. There was also a debut for Jamie McDonnell for Vaulks but he was thrown into the thick of things.<\/p>\n

The final substitute was Siriki Dembele coming on for Peart-Harris, although there wasn’t long enough to make a real impact.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

Oxford United continue to search for a first win under Matt Bloomfield as the U’s played out a second successive goalless draw, this time against QPR. It was a scrappy game of football in tough conditions at Grenoble Road and while it’s a promising point, the gap to safety begins to grow. Here are three […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":335,"featured_media":663424,"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":[8430,33,32,30],"tags":[279],"class_list":["post-663507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-oxford-united","category-championship","category-league-football","category-news","tag-qpr"],"modified_by":"Dale Ventham, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663507","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=663507"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663507\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":663515,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663507\/revisions\/663515"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/663424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=663507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=663507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=663507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}