United were condemned to at least one more season of Conference football last night, as they blew a two-goal aggregate lead to lose on penalties to Exeter City[@opponent]exeter city[/@opponent] at Grenoble Road. In a performance that was a microcosm of Oxford's season, the side was in the driving seat following Yemi Odubade's low 29th-minute shot that Martin Rice failed to keep out. The gave the Yellows a 2-0 lead on aggregate, and despite having been under the cosh for much of the preceding half hour, they looked like they were cruising to Wembley. However, doing things easily is not the United way, and five minutes before half time their old achilles heel, defending set pieces, undid them again, as they failed to deal with a free kick, and Lee Phillips headed in, unmarked at the far post. This was justice both for Exeter's performance, and because Phillips had earlier had a goal wrongly disallowed for offside.[@news]2124[/@news]

The second half continued in the same vein, with Oxford still struggling to create much of a threat. However, an important moment came just after the hour mark, after Dave Challinor had shot over. Rob Duffy broke free and bore down on goal; Rice already committed himself, and all Duffy had to do was to steer the ball past the prone keeper, or just chip him, to restore United's two-goal cushion. Instead, Oxford's leading scorer hit his shot tamely into Rice's midriff, and the chance was gone. Less than 10 minutes later, United were ruing the miss as City substitute Adam Stansfield burst into the area and shot home from a narrow angle to level the aggregate scores. Odubade did get the ball in the net again for United, but his close-range header was ruled out for offside. Extra time saw the game become a more even contest, with both team visibly tiring after the high-tempo opening 90 minutes. Both sides again had good chances to score, with Billy Turley again outstanding in the Oxford goal, while the referee denied United a blatant penalty for handball. And so the game went to a penalty shoot-out, and Oxford bottled it big time, again after holding the advantage. Duffy scored first for United, and Exeter hit the post. Burgess scored, Exeter scored, Gavin Johnson scored, Exeter scored. Barry Quinn hit the ball straight at Rice, Exeter scored, Turley hit the post, then saved Exeter's next spot kick. Zebroski hit the post, Exeter scored, and United are still a non-league club.

Jim Smith kept the same line-up that had won at Exeter just four days earlier, a plan that backfired. The first substitution was on the hour, bringing on Duffy for Eddie Anaclet, who clearly wasn't up for the fight. During the first period of extra time Smith made a double substitution, taking off Martin Foster, who had been out of sorts all evening, and replacing him with former Grecian Carl Pettefer. The other change was to take off Danny Rose, and to bring on Johnson, allowing Burgess to relinquish his left-back role. This was arguably the right substitution, but it came half an hour or more too late.

Last night's referee was A Haines, who was also in charge of Oxford's 1-0 win at Southport in March. He was over fussy, and gave an astonishing amount of free kicks in Exeter's favour, and was a typical Conference referee, unfortunately. The attendance was just 10,651, which failed to beat Carlisle's record for a Conference play-off semi-final crowd. There will be no match report – can you blame us?

So, apart from the obvious ignominy of another season of purgatory, what does this mean for Oxford United? First, there has to be a dramatic reduction in the wage bill, with Ian Lenagan already stating that failure to go up would mean a reduction of 25 per cent in players' wages. This means that we have almost certainly seen the last of some of the higher-earning out-of-contract players, such as Steve Basham, Chris Willmott, and possibly Barry Quinn and Chris Hargreaves. The club's highest earner, Phil Gilchrist, has another season to go, which will severely restrict the club in bringing in quality replacements. Those players who have been on loan for the latter part of the season, Danny Rose, Carl Zebroski, and Georges Santos, won't appear in an Oxford shirt again, while failure to go up may have a negative impact on negotiations with Michael Corcoran. Yemi Odubade is rumoured to be in talks with a league club, and it will be difficult to persuade him to stay after last night's disaster. More interesting will be how United approach their management situation; will Jim Smith move upstairs and allow Darren Patterson to take over, or isn't Patto ready for first-team management yet?

Another Conference season will almost certainly mean reduced attendances at home, and a smaller following away, as the novelty of visiting such hellholes as Woking and Nailsworth wears off. Instead of Bradford City and Brentford, we will be going to Histon and Droylsden. Despite the failures of this season – and it shouldn't be forgotten that United finished second, and didn't concede more than two goals in any game – the Us will still be the biggest, and richest, club in the Conference next season, and will start as the favourites for promotion. This season they couldn't handle the pressure, but will they have learned their lessons next time round? Knowing Oxford, the answer is unlikely to be straightforward.