United made it three wins on the trot with a fairly straightforward win over Ian Atkins’ Bristol Rovers. Oxford took the lead as early as the 13th minute, after Ryan Clarke had upended Tommy Mooney in the area. Clarke saved Lee Bradbury’s first penalty, but assistant referee T Mason adjudged that Clarke had come off his line before the ball was kicked, and Bradbury buried his second attempt. It took Oxford just six minutes to double their advantage, Leo Roget heading home a Chris Hackett corner. A lapse of concentration right at the start of the second half allowed Junior Agogo to pull a goal back, just 29 seconds after the kick-off, but Rovers still failed to really threaten the Oxford goal. With quarter of an hour remaining Craig Davies scored for the third successive game, following good work on the left by Matt Robinson. Former Oxford player Richard Walker pulled another goal back for Rovers in the last minute, but Oxford comfortably rode out the four minutes of added time to complete an unbeaten January for the Yellows.

Horacio Rodrigues named an unchanged side from the one that won at Kidderminster, following the adage that one should never change a winning team. Twenty minutes into the second half Jamie Brooks replaced Hackett on the right wing, and four minutes after Davies had extended Oxford’s lead, Mooney went off to be replaced by Lucas Cominelli, making his home debut. With 6 minutes left Davies himself went off, with Steve Basham taking his place.

Today’s referee was, of course, the one and only Joe Ross, who was last here for our 0-0 draw with Carlisle in April 2003, but who more notoriously took charge of our 1-0 defeat against Scunthorpe in October 2001, the game which, ironically, was indirectly responsible for Atkins coming to Oxford in the first place! Today Mr Ross kindly declined to book any Oxford players. Today’s attendance was a season’s best of 7,830. A match report will hopefully appear tomorrow.

Today’s win lifts Oxford back into the top half of the table, up to 12th place and just three points below the play-off places. Rovers, though, drop below United, and go down to 15th. Swansea took advantage of Yeovil’s FA Cup involvement at Charlton (where the Glovers lost 3-2), by beating Chester 3-0 to move up to 2nd, one point behind the leaders. Scunthorpe drop to 3rd after being held to a 1-1 draw by Boston, who are now one place above Oxford in 11th. Southend’s 2-0 win over 8th-placed Darlington leaves the Shrimpers in 4th place, while Macclesfield go fifth after beating Bury 2-1.

United’s next opponents, Lincoln City, beat Mansfield 2-0 to go 6th, while Northampton, who Oxford face in a fortnight, didn’t have a game and are now 7th. The two other teams above Oxford, Rochdale and Orient (9th and 10th respectively), both won 2-0, Dale against fourth bottom Rushden, and the Os against 19th-placed Notts County.

In the drop-zone things are looking bleak for bottom club Cambridge, who lost 3-1 at home to penultimate club Kidderminster. Third-bottom Shrewsbury lost 1-0 at home to Wycombe, who are now just one place below Oxford. Last night, Cheltenham lost 3-2 at home to Grimsby.