{"id":669573,"date":"2026-05-13T04:24:43","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T08:24:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?p=669573"},"modified":"2026-05-13T04:24:43","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T08:24:43","slug":"five-oxford-united-players-need-good-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2026\/05\/13\/five-oxford-united-players-need-good-season\/","title":{"rendered":"Five Oxford United Players Who Need a Good Season"},"content":{"rendered":"

Having suffered relegation from the Championship, there are some players at Oxford United<\/a> who need a good season in the upcoming campaign.<\/p>\n

Here, we have selected five U’s players who have had a mixed campaign in the second tier and will be looking to kick on under Matt Bloomfield in League One.<\/p>\n

Read More<\/strong>: Championship Club Aiming for \u2018Bargain\u2019 Move on Oxford United Midfielder\u00a0Brian De Keersmaecker<\/a><\/p>\n

Five Oxford United Players Who Need a Good Season<\/h2>\n

Tyler Goodrham<\/h3>\n

It was an unfortunate campaign for academy graduate Tyler Goodrham, with the 22-year-old missing much of the campaign due to injury.<\/p>\n

The attacker managed just 14 appearances in all competitions before an ankle injury curtailed his season in January, having previously missed an earlier run of games.<\/p>\n

A couple of seasons ago, he appeared to be one of Oxford’s most prized assets, but his setback has halted his career and, perhaps as important from a club standpoint, his valuation.<\/p>\n

Both he and the club need a strong campaign for the youngster, in the hope of reclaiming some of the valuation that was previously mooted and helping the U’s achieve their goals of returning to the second tier.<\/p>\n

Mark Harris<\/h3>\n

Striker Mark Harris struggled to make much of an impact in the second tier, despite scoring four in the opening four games of their first season back.<\/p>\n

He ended the campaign as joint-top scorer with a measly six goals, which is somewhat underwhelming for a striker.<\/p>\n

This season, the Wales international managed just three goals, but most of his minutes came from the bench with Tottenham loanee Will Lankshear notching 11 in the league as the first-choice striker.<\/p>\n

However, while some fans would like to see the back of Harris, the 27-year-old penned a new deal<\/a> earlier in the season and he struck 15 league goals the last time the U’s were in League One.<\/p>\n

With Lankshear returning to Spurs, Harris will be looking to re-establish himself as the first-choice striker and hope to bang in the goals once more.<\/p>\n

Jamie McDonnell<\/h3>\n

Midfielder Jamie McDonnell was signed in January, but the club may have purchased the youngster with League One in mind.<\/p>\n

The former Nottingham Forest man had a successful loan spell with Mansfield in the third tier before joining the U’s, where he managed 12 league appearances.<\/p>\n

However, the form of Brentford loanee Yunus Konak limited the permanent addition to minutes mostly from the bench but he will be pushing to start alongside skipper Cameron Brannagan when we kick off again in the summer.<\/p>\n

It looks likely he could be a key part of Bloomfield’s side next season so he’ll be looking to reproduce the form he exhibited at Mansfield.<\/p>\n

Ruben Roosken<\/h3>\n

Like McDonell, defender Ruben Roosken was a January addition, with the left-back arriving on loan from Huddersfield.<\/p>\n

However, despite making just one appearance, the U’s triggered an option to make the deal permanent. He managed just four appearances in total, in part due to the form of Jack Currie but also in part to not really looking that good when he did play.<\/p>\n

He often struggled defensively and lacked confidence when given the chance. With that in mind, he will need a good upcoming season.<\/p>\n

Of course, Currie is likely to remain Bloomfield’s number one choice for the position but his performances in the second tier could pique interest from other clubs, meaning Roosken could arguably be the next in line.<\/p>\n

Nik Prelec<\/h3>\n

Another to struggle with injury is forward, Nik Prelec. Like Roosken, the Slovenian arrived on loan but the U’s triggered an option to make the deal permanent.<\/p>\n

The 24-year-old has had a stop-start campaign, has been deployed in several positions and has struggled to make much of an impact due to a lack of minutes.<\/p>\n

That said, he has shown glimpses of his ability. A drop down a division could help him find some form which could lead to a decent sell-on-fee should the club look to move him on.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

Having suffered relegation from the Championship, there are some players at Oxford United who need a good season in the upcoming campaign. Here, we have selected five U’s players who have had a mixed campaign in the second tier and will be looking to kick on under Matt Bloomfield in League One. Read More: Championship […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":335,"featured_media":656424,"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":[32,34,30,8430],"tags":[32711,31653,32510,32842,9372],"class_list":["post-669573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-league-football","category-league12","category-news","category-oxford-united","tag-jamie-mcdonnell","tag-mark-harris","tag-nik-prelec","tag-ruben-roosken","tag-tyler-goodrham"],"modified_by":"Dale Ventham, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669573","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=669573"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669573\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":669685,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669573\/revisions\/669685"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/656424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=669573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=669573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=669573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}