Southend are the visitors
this week as the mighty yellows look to build on last weekend's 3-1
win over Hartlepool and give the home fans something to cheer
about. With United currently second in the table you'd think Oxford
fans would be feeling good at the moment, but supporters haven't seen
Oxford win at home since the visit
of Bury back in August, with two draws and a defeat in subsequent
matches at the Kassam. No wonder then that some fans are feeling a
little unloved
at the moment, but this weekend's match offers an opportunity to put
that right.
That's not the only
sequence of results we'd like to see overturned this weekend. Our
recent form against Southend is miserable, with just one win in our
last ten encounters. The last time the Shrimpers visited the Kassam
was to knock
us out of the JPT back in January, following that up the
following month with a 1-0 win at Roots Hall.
That said, the Southend
which comes to town this weekend is quite a different beast to the
one which has caused us so much pain in the last few years. Paul
Sturrock is out and new boss Phil Brown has not enjoyed the easiest
of starts to his tenure in Essex. After winning the first three games of the season, Southend have since failed to register a single victory
and haven't scored more than once in a game since the middle of
August.
As a result, they took the
rather drastic
step of naming six first-team players in a development squad
match against
Colchester during the week in an attempt to get them back into a
winning frame of mind ahead of their trip to the Kassam. Only time
will tell whether the resulting 5-1 victory will have given them a
much-needed confidence boost or will have tired them out ahead of the
weekend.
 |
| Picture by Jon Whiles Photography |
Chris Wilder has some
interesting selection choices to make this weekend. For example, does
he keep faith with the side which responded so strongly last weekend?
If so, that will mean no place in the side for the returning Dave
Kitson after he served his one-match ban last week. And what about
James Constable, who is returning to full fitness after chipping a
bone in his foot? Could Alfie Potter, who has been one of our most
important players so far this season, be the one to miss out for
either of the returning strikers? Certainly it would seem harsh on
Ryan Williams to be dropped after impressing on the right wing last
weekend and scoring his first senior goal. One thing we can say with
certainty is that fit-again Max Crocombe will return to the bench
this weekend, after Shwan Jalal was recalled by Bournemouth during
the week.
From the Vaults
Oxford United v Southend United, 24th August 1996
The season was young
when Southend came to the Manor for our first home league game of the
season. We had returned to the second tier after two seasons away and
began with a trip to QPR, freshly relegated from the Premier League.
Southend had been mainstays at this level since their promotion in
1991, but their star was falling and they arrived at Oxford with a
season of struggle ahead of them...
Also This Weekend
Oxford get their
first taste of WSL football this weekend. Although the new WSL2
season doesn't begin until next year, the women's development squad
begin their WSL Development League season on Sunday with something of
a trial by fire. They travel to Hertfordshire University to face
Arsenal's development squad in the Southern Division.
0 comments:
Post a Comment