Oxford United 2 Aston Villa XI 0

Oxford comfortably beat a very young Aston Villa side this evening in the last pre-season friendly before the real football starts on Saturday. Two first-half goals from Alfie Potter did the damage, but more pleasing than the scoreline against a bunch of kids who will probably never get near the Villa first team were several aspects of the team's performance.

In the first half United had Ryan Clarke in goal, and apart from one expert double save from Adam McGurk in the second minute, the new goalkeeper hardly had a touch. Luke Foster was back in the defence alongside Mark Creighton, while Chris Carruthers was favoured with a full 90 minutes at left back, with Adam Chapman on the opposite flank. Jack Midson was the lone frontsman until he injured himself after landing awkwardly from an innocuous header and was replaced by James Constable. Potter and Alex Rhodes were the two wingers, with a midfield trio of Simon Clist, Dannie Bulman, and Adam Murray.

Potter's first came in the 37th minute after an excellent jinking run from Rhodes took him into the area. His cutback fell perfectly for Potter to clip home from the edge of the goal area. Seven minutes later, after Rhodes had a shot go narrowly over, the left winger flicked the ball into Potter's path and he raced forward before beating Elliot Parish with an early shot. The 2-0 interval lead was no more than Oxford deserved, and despite the lack of goals things got better in the second half.

United made just one change at the break, bringing on Billy Turley for Clarke. Shortly afterwards Sam Deering replaced the limping Rhodes. A number of other substitutions followed, with the inevitable effect of breaking up the play. Despite this Oxford put together some delightful passing movements, with Chapman particularly impressive with some of his dragbacks, and even Murray joined in the showboating. Deering bounced back from making a late tackle on Gary Gardner which must have taken his leg off, judging by the reaction of the Villa players and fans (although he was able to stroll around the pitch to the dugout without even a limp after he was stretchered off), to advance to the edge of the area and smash a shot against the bar. At the other end Turley had almost as quiet a time as Clarke had in the first period.

The win was as meaningless as a defeat would have been, but the passing and movement from the Oxford side was better than anything else we've seen so far in pre-season. If United can take that level of play into the opening fixture against York City on Saturday then it is unlikely that the visitors will be able to match it. [@opponent]aston villa[/@opponent] [@connection]aston villa[/@connection]