United’s season finally crashed around their ears this afternoon as they could only draw against an unimpressive Leyton Orient. Oxford got off to the worst possible start, as a Leo Roget error, compounded by hesitancy from Chris Tardif, allowed Lee Steele to nip in and score against his former colleagues after just 12 seconds. Twelve seconds. However, United refused to panic and continued playing a patient game, and after just 17 minutes Steve Basham scored an excellent goal, allowing the ball to run past him before blasting home with his left foot from 20 yards. It got even better for United nine minutes into the second half, when a Chris Hackett cross was headed on by Basham and the ball fell perfectly for Tommy Mooney, who pushed Juan Pablo Raponi aside and shot home to give United the lead.

United had several opportunities to seal the game, but weren’t able to finish any of them, and Orient equalised against the run of play when a Gary Alexander shot hit Michael Simpson, and the deflection flew past Tardif for an equaliser with 18 minutes remaining. This knocked the stuffing out of United, who rarely threatened again and who looked like a deflated side whose season is over.

With both manager Ramon Diaz and head coach Horacio Rodriguez absent, David Oldfield took charge of the team. He made two changes from the side that drew at Scunthorpe on Friday, replacing Dave Mackey with Lee Molyneaux, and giving Raponi a start instead of Lee Bradbury. Thirteen minutes from time Bradbury came on for the sadly ineffective Raponi, and ten minutes later Billy Beechers made his home debut, replacing Lucas Cominelli.

The match was officiated by Brian Curson, who last took charge of a United game in last season’s League Cup defeat by Reading. He didn’t show any yellow cards to United players. The attendance was a disappointing 5,320, not helped by a meagre away support. Anticipate a match report tomorrow, or possibly Wednesday.

United’s failure to win sees them drop a place to 13th, while Orient remain a point behind, down to 16th place. Leaders Yeovil didn’t play today, and Southend went second after winning 2-0 at bottom-of-the-table Cambridge. Scunthorpe dropped to third after losing 2-0 at Lincoln, who have climbed to 6th, while Swansea’s 2-1 win at Cheltenham takes them to 4th. Macclesfield are 5th after being held 1-1 by Boston, and Northampton remain 7th after beating United’s next opponents, 4th-bottom Shrewsbury, 2-0, leaving Oxford eleven points shy of the play-offs.

Kidderminster missed a glorious chance to climb out of the relegation zone, after Mark Rawle gave them a half-time lead against Mansfield, but they lost 3-1 while Rushden drew 0-0 at Grimsby. Richard Walker scored twice for Bristol Rovers as they drew 3-3 with 8th-placed Darlington. Chester beat Bury 2-1, and Rochdale and Wycombe drew 1-1.