United’s latest humiliation occured at Spotland this afternoon, as Rochdale put five past them for Oxford’s second-worst result of the season. The disaster took only three minutes to start, with Greg Heald scoring from a corner. Eight minutes later Ernie Cooksie beat Chris Tardif to a cross to head home for Rochdale’s second, and three minutes later Grant Holt scored a spectacular third. It was 4-0 to Dale after just 25 minutes, when Ricky Lambert burst through to slot the ball past Tardif. Somehow Oxford managed to tighten things up, and they didn’t concede again in the first half. Holt made it 5-0 in the 69th minute and United’s capitulation was complete, although with nine minutes remaining Matt Robinson prodded the ball home for a late consolation. Astonishingly, Oxford actually had more shots and more corners than Dale, and Steve Basham hit the post and also forced Matt Gilks into some good saves, while Tardif had a quiet second half, but made an astonishing triple save in the first period to deny Holt, Cooksey and then Lambert in the space of about 30 seconds.

Head coach Horacio Rodriguez made two changes to the side that beat Southend last week, one voluntary and one enforced. The voluntary change was bringing in Basham in place of Craig Davies, while the enforced change was at the back, with Jon Ashton getting injured in training Mateo Corbo came back into the side alongside Paul Wanless. Twenty minutes into the second half Tom Winters made a welcome return to the left wing, replacing Lee Bradbury, while with five minutes to go Davies came on for Tommy Mooney. Juan Pablo Raponi was “rested” and didn’t travel with the squad, while Emiliano Diaz has allegedly gone to Monaco to visit the absent Ramon Diaz, and will thence return to Argentina, along with brother Michael.

The referee was M Warren, who last officiated an Oxford game when United won at Notts County back in August. He showed yellow cards to two United players, Chris Hackett and Lucas Cominelli (and not, as reported elsewhere, Corbo, astonishingly). The attendance was a meagre 2,579. A match report may appear sometime over the weekend (submissions welcome).

This defeat drops United back into the bottom half of the table, down to 14th, while Rochdale climb to 10th, but are four points off the play-offs, so we can look forward to yet another trip to Spotland next season. In the big game at the top, Yeovil won 1-0 at Southend to consolidate their position at the top and drop the Shrimpers down to third. Scunthorpe’s 4-0 win over Bristol Rovers takes them into second place, one point behind the Glovers, while Swansea remain fourth, despite beating Shrewsbury 1-0. Three points seperate the top four clubs. Lincoln are fifth after they were held to a goalless draw by 8th-placed Darlington, while Macclesfield’s 3-0 defeat at Cheltenham leaves the Silkmen in 6th place, Cheltenham’s first goal was a Dave Morley own goal. Northampton occupy the final play-off spot after their 2-0 win at Chester, who are United’s final opponents of the season when they visit the KasStad next Saturday.

At the bottom, Kidderminster’s relegation was confirmed as they fell 4-1 at home to Grimsby, while fellow Conference-bound club Cambridge United, who went into administration yesterday, won 1-0 at third-bottom Rushden to lift themselves off the bottom and above the Harriers.

In the third division, Wrexham’s relegation wasn’t quite confirmed, as they followed up their midweek 2-0 win over Port Vale with a 4-1 win at Stockport, to leave themselves six points from safety with two games left. Stockport have announced that from July they will be a fans’ run club. Franchise are one point from safety after they won 3-0 at relegated Peterborough, while Torquay remained three points above the relegation zone with a 2-0 win over Blackpool. Oldham have found themselves back in jeopardy, just one point above Franchise, after they went down 1-0 at Chesterfield.

Of more concern to Oxford fans than their catastrophe at Rochdale today is the situation regarding the management team. It is widely believed (although not yet confirmed) that Ramon Diaz has left the club. Raul Marcovich has also not been around for several weeks, and Jean-Marc Goiran is also absent. Rodriguez has said that his situation, and presumably that of Pablo Fernandez, will be sorted out this week, and an announcement will be made before the Chester game, but if he also leaves the club then all the good work that the Argentinian team has done in the past five months will have been for nothing, as yet another new manager will need to be appointed, and yet more unsettling squad rebuilding will occur. Firoz Kassam may find that his football club unravels before his eyes, as season-ticket sales decline, and with it the turnover that will enable the club to sign players of the quality of Tommy Mooney and Lee Bradbury. This could lead to a fans’ backlash, of which the only visible sign might be declining crowds, but which could be a lot further reaching than that.