{"id":666144,"date":"2026-03-07T02:47:22","date_gmt":"2026-03-07T07:47:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?p=666144"},"modified":"2026-03-07T02:48:40","modified_gmt":"2026-03-07T07:48:40","slug":"three-talking-points-oxford-united-win-at-preston","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2026\/03\/07\/three-talking-points-oxford-united-win-at-preston\/","title":{"rendered":"Three Talking Points as Oxford United Win at Preston"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oxford United<\/a> recorded back-to-back wins for the first time this season with a 3-1 victory on the road at Preston.<\/p>\n

Goals from Michal Helik, Will Lankshear and Ciaron Brown sealed a vital win to move the U’s out of the bottom three for the first time since November.<\/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 Travel to Preston\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

Oxford United Win at Preston<\/h2>\n

Set Piece Goals<\/h3>\n

When Michal Helik gave Oxford a fourth-minute lead, it was the fourth consecutive set-piece goal for Matt Bloomfield’s side.<\/p>\n

It came from a deep Cameron Brannagan free kick before the Pole chested the ball down and bundled it home.<\/p>\n

While Oxford’s second didn’t come from a set-piece, the third did when Myles Peart-Harris saw his long throw flicked on by Helik towards his centre back partner in Brown who poked home the third.<\/p>\n

Oxford’s main threat of goals continues to come from set-pieces and now that they are starting to convert on a more regular basis, it’s only a good thing as they look to avoid the drop.<\/p>\n

Second Half Goals<\/h3>\n

Oxford headed into the break level after Preston equalised just six minutes after Helik’s opener and that would have been a cause for concern having scored just nine seconds half goals this season.<\/p>\n

This was the lowest of any side in the second tier but the U’s netted twice to help them secure the win.<\/p>\n

Over the course of the campaign, Oxford have often started well but ended poorly, so having a consistent display in both periods is also a key improvement.<\/p>\n

Back-to-Back Wins and Out of the Bottom Three<\/h3>\n

As mentioned in the introduction to this article, this was the first time the U’s have recorded back-to-back victories this season, which moves them out of the bottom three ahead of the Saturday fixtures.<\/p>\n

The last time Oxford recorded successive wins was in January 2025 under Gary Rowett so putting that to bed with just ten games remaining is another important milestone ticked off.<\/p>\n

As is the case with moving out of the drop zone. The U’s have occupied a bottom-three spot since November. Rowett’s side moved up to 20th spot with a win over Ipswich but a defeat against Swansea the following week dropped them back down.<\/p>\n

The U’s will be hoping to maintain this momentum as the season reaches its climax.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Featured image courtesy of SmartFrame\/News Images\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Oxford United recorded back-to-back wins for the first time this season with a 3-1 victory on the road at Preston. Goals from Michal Helik, Will Lankshear and Ciaron Brown sealed a vital win to move the U’s out of the bottom three for the first time since November. Here are three talking points from the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":335,"featured_media":665931,"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":[659],"class_list":["post-666144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-oxford-united","category-championship","category-league-football","category-news","tag-preston-north-end"],"modified_by":"Dale Ventham, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666144","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=666144"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666144\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":666146,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666144\/revisions\/666146"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/665931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=666144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=666144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=666144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}