Final day stroll sees Oxford stride stress-free into the League One play-off places

This wasn’t how it was supposed to play out for Oxford United.

This difficult-t0-predict, difficult-to-understand Oxford side, a team that often seems at the behest of the mood of their emotional head coach, could surely only seal a place in the League One play-off places for a second consecutive season in dramatic, almost inexplicable circumstances.

Last weekend’s come-from-behind win against Shrewsbury Town left them a point and a place behind sixth-placed Portsmouth going into the final weekend of the season, meaning they would need a better result against Burton at the Kassam Stadium than Danny Cowley’s side could get against Accrington at Fratton Park to overtake them.

The scene was perfectly set for Oxford to either grasp glory with a comeback win in similar fashion to when they came from two goals down to defeat Gillingham three weeks ago to move into the top six, or for them to crack under the pressure and succumb to a gut-wrenching defeat the way they did in a five-minute collapse against AFC Wimbledon just three days later that saw them drop out of the play-off places and hand the initiative to Pompey.

Even though it was on points per game that they finished in the top six last season, only a 3-2 comeback win against Shrewsbury in the final weekend of League One football before the Covid-19 enforced suspension secured a play-off place, and with eighth-placed Charlton also in with a chance of overtaking both Oxford and Portsmouth this time around, Sunday afternoon was poised to be enthralling.

At the start of play, Charlton were below the Yellows on goal difference alone as they hosted third tier champions Hull City, but a comfortable 4-0 win against Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink’s Brewers kept them well out of the reach of the Addicks, and more importantly, Portsmouth’s 1-0 defeat meant the U’s ended the day in the top six with a minimal amount of fuss involved.

The day did begin with the threat of a spectacle though.

The pre-match formality of the warm-up – so often an uneventful period of preparation – was doused with a sense of occasion as news broke that Oxford boss Karl Robinson would be absent from the home dugout having received a four-match touchline ban for a red card he was shown in a 3-1 defeat to Sunderland on Good Friday.

This potentially damaging revelation was followed by a bizarre incident that saw members of the Oxford ground staff move the advertising hoardings closer to the pitch in an attempt to deny Burton space to wind up long throws. This caught the eye of the Burton coaches, leading to a complaint to referee Thomas Bramall who subsequently forced the hoardings to be moved back to their original position.

If this was a sign of nerves amongst the Oxford hierarchy, the opening ten minutes of the game in which the Brewers, in the midst of a run of form that has seen them lose just five of their last 23 matches, were on top and attempting to force the issue. An early flurry of Tom Hamer projectiles from the touchline even causing the fake crowd noise that is pumped into the stadium to temporarily pause through fear of the U’s having an off-day.

However, it was in fact a Hamer throw-in that preceded Oxford taking the lead and beginning an afternoon where they ended up never really looking likely to fail to hold up their end of the bargain in terms of securing the final play-off place.

After clearing the ball into box from the left, Oxford broke quickly through Elliot Lee and Mark Sykes before Sam Long fired the perfect cross into the Burton penalty area that Olamide Shodipo could do little else but nod in to the back of the net. It was Long’s tenth goal contribution of the season, making the fact that he was later forced off with a hamstring injury all the more disappointing ahead of the post-season.

The goal not only saw the U’s move into the top six but also helped them gather their composure. They began to control proceedings through Cameron Brannagan at the base of the midfield and rarely offered opportunities for Burton to spoil their afternoon.

It was in fact the visitors who were in the mood to be accommodating, as after Shodipo had seen a shot blocked Burton midfielder Michael Mancienne looped a header high into the air and towards his own goal. The intended target of the pass is likely still a mystery to even Mancienne himself, although Matty Taylor did not wait around to help him figure it out as he nipped in ahead of goalkeeper Dillon Barnes to score his 18th goal of the season.

The joy of the second goal was significantly amplified by news from the south coast that Accrington had taken the lead against Portsmouth, meaning only either a comeback from one of Pompey or Burton, or a glut of goals from Charlton against what was statistically the joint-best defence in the division would deny Oxford a place in the play-offs.

The second half began with an absence of both tempo and direction from either side that suggested the minds of the Oxford players were on the action taking place elsewhere, and those of the Burton players were on the well-earned break they can now enjoy after rising from the bottom of League One to the security of 16th place following the return of Hasselbaink as manager in January.

Eliot Lee placed a 25-yard free-kick under the wall and into the back of the net via both the gloves of Barnes and his left-hand upright to ensure Oxford would be ending the season with three points, and further directing attention to events at Portsmouth and Charlton.

This was typified by the gloss being somewhat taken off substitute Sam Winnall’s fantastic injury-time strike by the post-match admission of Taylor, the man he had replaced, that most of the bench had instead been watching the final stages of the game at Fratton Park on TV screens rather than the near-formality taking place in front of them.

Even though Charlton had taken the lead at the Valley, Oxford’s margin of victory against the Brewers meant that Nigel Adkins’ side would have needed to score another seven goals to claim sixth place for themselves.

Robinson made his way down from the directors’ box to join the on-field huddle that had gathered to enable both players and staff to find out the Portsmouth result together. The muted response following confirmation of the final whistle 85 miles away reflected both the understanding that Oxford are yet to achieve their ultimate goal, and that even if the lack of final day drama had been a surprise for some, it perhaps should have been expected.

Oxford picked up 55 of their 74 points against sides in the bottom half of the League One table and have been no strangers to racking up sizeable wins, even putting five past Burton in the reverse of Sunday’s fixture at the start of the year.

And although Brandon Barker was left on the substitutes bench as a precaution brought about by a knee injury, the attacking trident of Shodipo, Lee and Taylor, ably supported by Sykes and James Henry in midfield, has the potent combination of speed, creativity and clinical finishing to comfortably see Oxford past the majority of sides at this level.

The painless manor in which a play-off place was secured was unexpected in terms of Oxford’s recent history of slow starts to seasons and winning runs that come out of the blue, and even more so when considering the context of their on-off relationship with the top six in recent months, with the U’s getting into a habit of failing to grasp opportunities to break in whilst also collecting enough wins to ensure hope was never fully lost.

This was not a breath-taking comeback or a soul-destroying defeat, it was a procession that would have made those unfamiliar with the U’s fortunes this season think the achievement of finishing in the top six was an expected consequence of a talented squad steadily improving under one of the third tier’s most highly-rated coaches.

That would ignore the return of two wins in the 10 league games that followed defeat to Wycombe in last season’s play-off final though. It would ignore the fact that Oxford sat bottom of the table in October before suffering a first defeat in nine against hated rivals Swindon in the A420 derby at the end of November.

It would be a failure to appreciate the impact of losing Rob Dickie, the outstanding defender in League One last season, to QPR in the summer, and that the partnership of Eliott Moore and Rob Atkinson did not become one of the finest centre-back pairings in the EFL overnight.

It would overlook the emergence of Jack Stevens as one of the league’s outstanding goalkeepers during the nine game winning run that made relegation worries a thing of the past. It would not do justice to the wonderful seasons that full-backs Long and Josh Ruffels have had both in terms of their defensive efforts and the number of goals and assists they have provided.

It would disregard the fact that Brannagan missed most of the first half of the campaign with an eye infection before re-establishing himself as one of the league’s best midfielders in a new position, and underestimate the importance Robinson’s policy of rotation has had in terms of helping Oxford finish the season in the best form of any side in the division.

These are the factors that make it so rewarding for both the club and it’s supporters – who are reportedly likely to be able to attend the first leg of the semi-final against Blackpool in limited numbers – that the season has finished with a shot at redemption after falling just short at Wembley in July last year.

“What a season! 74 points, that’s Oxford United back in the play-offs.

“In the last three seasons we’re broken an awful lot of records here, and when you break records at a club like Oxford they must be big because there’s a lot of history here and a lot of great people that have had the honour to represent the football club.

“We performed very calmly, and that is the type of club that we want to be. I know a lot of people talk about my passion, and my aggression sometimes and how loud I can be, but there is a tremendous state of calmness in the club and that puts us in a very strong state of mind.

“People have questioned us and written us off an awful lot of times this year. From our point of view we’ve gotten ourselves there (into the play-offs) by hook or by crook. We were bottom at certain times this year, in a relegation fight going into November and in the play-offs in May.”

– Oxford United Head Coach Karl Robinson

Whether or not Oxford will be able to secure a return to the second tier for the first time since 1999 in straightforward fashion remains to be seen, yet if they are able to show the quality in forward areas that they did in walking into the top six on the final day of the regular season, there is no reason why it cannot be the Yellows who are celebrating under the Wembley Arch this time around.

Even if the victory over Burton was without the drama that their season had seemingly been building up to, Robinson and his players have still overcome their fair share of adversity since their last play-off adventure and now find themselves in a position to consign to history the heartbreak that paralysed them last autumn.

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