Wrecked

United went down 2-0 at home to Wrexham, courtesy of two second half goals. Oxford dominated the first half, with James Hunt missing a hat-trick of excellent chances, two of which were well saved by Andy Dibble. Steve Basham also saw a curling shot come back off the post. This failure to score proved costly when a Matt Bound error allowed the division's leading scorer, Andy Morrell, to squeeze the ball home in the 63rd minute. Eleven minutes later Wrexham doubled their lead when slack marking allowed Dennis Lawrence to head home after a hotly disputed corner. Lee Steele did get the ball in the net for United right at the end, but the flag had already gone up for offside.

Ian Atkins made just the one change from the side which had won at Kidderminster, Paul Powell coming in for the suspended Matt Robinson. After Wrexham had taken the lead Bobby Ford was brought on for Dave Savage. With the score standing at 2-0 Atkins made a double substitution, with Steele coming on for Basham and Jefferson Louis replacing Bound, with the Us reverting to 4-4-2 as Andy Scott moved over to the left wing.

Referee Phil Joslin, who did so well when he took charge of United's League Cup match at the Valley earlier this season, had a very poor game making a number of bad decisions, not least over-ruling the assistant referee S Hollick for the corner that led to Wrexham's second goal. The attendance was just 5,532. A match report, courtesy of Statto99, can be found here.

United have dropped to fourth in the table after Bury came from a goal down to win 2-1 at Cambridge. Fortunately Kidderminster did United a favour by beating Bournemouth 1-0, but Oxford are now just one point above Wrexham who have two games in hand, and just three points ahead of tenth placed Bournemouth, who also have two games in hand. Lincoln City remain in the frame with a 4-1 win at Carlisle, whilst Swansea hauled themselves up to the same points total as second-bottom Boston by beating Darlington 1-0.