{"id":664610,"date":"2026-02-01T01:00:28","date_gmt":"2026-02-01T06:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?p=664610"},"modified":"2026-01-31T13:32:36","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T18:32:36","slug":"three-talking-points-oxford-united-lose-against-birmingham","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2026\/02\/01\/three-talking-points-oxford-united-lose-against-birmingham\/","title":{"rendered":"Three Talking Points as Oxford United Lose Against Birmingham"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oxford United<\/a> suffered a first defeat under Matt Bloomfield with a 2-0 loss at home against Birmingham.<\/p>\n

The U’s started brightly but goals in each half for the visiting team were enough to ease past a tiring Oxford side.<\/p>\n

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

Read More<\/strong>: Team News, Form and Predicted Line-Up as Oxford United Welcome Birmingham\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

Oxford United Lose Against Birmingham<\/h2>\n

Fatigue and Fitness<\/h3>\n

In the previous three displays under the new head coach, Oxford have had a spring in their step and the displays, for the most part, have improved.<\/p>\n

However, despite a bright start, the U’s looked leggy and fatigue was creeping in, particularly from those who had featured in the other games.<\/p>\n

The killer part was the final third, where Oxford’s legs just couldn’t match the Blues’ defence.<\/p>\n

Lack of Home Goals<\/h3>\n

And that’s a concern, with Oxford failing to score in any of their last four games at Grenoble Road.<\/p>\n

The U’s have had chances in those games but putting the ball in the back of the net is the issue.<\/p>\n

Oxford have a better home record than on the road and with games coming up against teams around them, they need to use that home advantage to move them towards safety.<\/p>\n

Injury Crisis Worsens<\/h3>\n

Oxford were dealt a couple of injury blows ahead of the game with Jack Currie and Brian De Keersmaecker both sidelined.<\/p>\n

Currie could be back next weekend with De Keersmaecker sidelined for a little longer.<\/p>\n

There was also an injury for new signing, Jeon Jin-woo, but he is yet to feature for the U’s since his arrival.<\/p>\n

However, there was a return to the bench for Michal Helik while Przemyslaw Placheta also made his return to the pitch second-half half substitute.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

Oxford United suffered a first defeat under Matt Bloomfield with a 2-0 loss at home against Birmingham. The U’s started brightly but goals in each half for the visiting team were enough to ease past a tiring Oxford side. Here are three talking points from the game. Read More: Team News, Form and Predicted Line-Up […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":335,"featured_media":646493,"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":[1318],"class_list":["post-664610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-oxford-united","category-championship","category-league-football","category-news","tag-birmingham-city"],"modified_by":"Dale Ventham, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664610","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=664610"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664610\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":664613,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664610\/revisions\/664613"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/646493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=664610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=664610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=664610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}