United had their first tricky test of the new year this evening as they visited Swansea. Oxford showed that they can overcome Manager of the Month curses and adverse crowd conditions by holding the hosts to a 0-0 draw, continuing their unbeaten run to 16 games, four short of the club record. Neither side came particularly close to scoring in a game which saw the home side mount most of the pressure, but in which Oxford also caused a few problems of their own.

Ian Atkins was forced into one change from the side that won at Southend nine days ago, due to Julian Alsop commencing his five game ban. Prior to the game United brought in Carlisle striker Richie Foran on a one month loan, with a view to a permanent move if he does okay. However, the 23 year old wasn’t registered in time to play tonight (allegedly a deliberate move by Oxford, for some reason) and so Jefferson Louis started up front alongside Steve Basham. Louis was replaced by supersub Mark Rawle with just over quarter of an hour remaining, and five minutes later Jon Ashton came on for Paul Wanless to shore up the defence.

The referee was R Olivier, who curiously was in charge of the equivalent fixture last season, as well as Oxford’s home win over Southend this time around. He had a card-happy first half during which he showed yellow cards to Scott McNiven, James Hunt (wrongly, it should have been Matt Robinson), Wanless and (eventually) Robinson himself. In the second half former Swansea favourite Matt Bound joined his colleagues in Olivier’s notebook. The attendance was 8,896. We might get a match report to you tomorrow.

This was the only game tonight in the Third Division, and as a result Oxford’s lead at the top is now two points over Hull with a game in hand, and three points above Doncaster, over whom United have a slightly superior goal difference. The point also lifts Swansea over Huddersfield, on goal difference, into seventh place.