Football Season Guide

Oxford started the previous campaign in a rather disappointing manner and battled against the drop for more than a half of the campaign. It always looked like there was a rather good team in the U's, but they were repeatedly showing signs of being naive, which proved costly particularly on their travels, as they only recorded their first away victory in late February. They ended the season in superb form, but their revival came too late for them to push for a play-off place, which was their original goal going into the campaign. With Robinson seemingly finally finding the winning formula, the U's entered the summer with plenty of optimism, but have been frustrated in the summer transfer market so far. Curtis Nelson has joined Cardiff, while Marcus Browne is back at West Ham, with Oxford reportedly set to fail in their bid to sign the player on a permanent deal. The signings made so far include two youngsters in Kevin Berkoe and Sam Allardyce, a midfielder with no previous League One experience in Alex Gorris and Tariqe Fosu, a player that Robinson is well acquainted with, having managed him at Charlton before. While the U's have lost only two truly important players, they currently look a touch weaker than they were last season, as they never had the biggest of squads, and saw it additionally shrink over the summer. However, the club reportedly do have money available to bring in players and will likely bring in several new faces over the upcoming weeks.