Football Season Guide

Oxford had a fairly successful 2016/17 season as they entered the season looking to escape the drop and went on to do that fairly easily. They also reached the final of the Football League Trophy, with the big disappointment of their season being the fact that their big Wembley day ended in a defeat to relegated Coventry. The U's finished the season only four points below the top six and will naturally be hoping to improve this season and perhaps even battle for direct promotion. However, they have had a rather turbulent summer given that their manager Michael Appleton left in mid-June to become the new assistant manager at Leicester City. The club opted for a somewhat risky move, as they name Pep Clotet, who was assistant manager at Leeds last time around, as their new manager. The U's have gone for a mix of stabs in the dark and proven League One players during the summer, with James Henry, Scott Shearer and Jonathan Obika all being well-known names in the third tier. Meanwhile, Charlie Raglan signs from Chesterfield after being on loan last season. However, they have lost some of their most important players in Liam Sercombe, Chey Dunkley, Joe Skarz and Chris Maguire, with the fact that all of these players joined League One rivals clearly speaking volumes about the gap in financial possibilities that Oxford will need to overcome in order to push for promotion. All things considered, they seem to have adjusted to the summer departures quite well but they have a quite different squad than last season and an inexperienced manager in charge so there is a big question mark over how much it will take them to click.