United’s end of season was emphatically confirmed this afternoon at Gay Meadow where Shrewsbury, fighting against relegation, destroyed a lacklustre Oxford, who suffered a second-half collapse. United were the better side in the first half, and Shrewsbury keeper Joe Hart, making just his third league appearance, had to be alert to save from Steve Basham and from a Juan Pablo Raponi free kick. The Shrews took the lead just two minutes into the second half, when Dave Edwards waltzed through the Oxford defence, riding no tackles whatsoever, and shot home from the edge of the area. Any slight fightback that Oxford might have shown was well and truly undone ten minutes later, when Paul Wanless smashed a header past Tardif and into his own net off the crossbar. With 19 minutes to go Luke Rodgers scored his customary goal against United with a neat lob over Tardif, who found himself in no-man’s land with the rest of the defence awol.

Horacio Rodriguez made three changes to the side chosen by David Oldfield against Orient last Monday. Dave Mackay recovered from his illness to reclaim his place at Lee Molyneaux’s expense, while the injured Leo Roget was replaced by Wanless. In midfield captain Lee Bradbury regained his place in place of Lucas Cominelli. After just quarter of an hour, Jon Ashton limped off to be replaced by Molyneaux in the centre of defence. Just a minute before Shrewsbury’s second goal Craig Davies, fresh from Wales Under-21 duty, came on for Raponi, who’d had one of his better games for United. Three minutes before the home side’s third goal Cominelli came on for Tommy Mooney, who went straight down the tunnel after one of his less sparkling performances.

The game was refereed by P Taylor, who was in charge of United’s 0-0 home draw with Lincoln last season. Apart from missing a blatant handball in the penalty area by a Shrewsbury defender, Mr Taylor also showed Davies a yellow card for a late tackle. The attendance was just 3,970, including almost 400 away fans. We will try and publish a match report tomorrow, or possibly Monday. Any submissions gratefully accepted.

United have dropped two places, back down to 15th, and are now 12 points off the play-offs. Shrewsbury, meanwhile have gone above Chester and are now 20th, nine points above the drop zone. Bottom side Cambridge lost 3-0 at Swansea, who climbed up to third, while Kidderminster also lost 3-0, going down to a Nathan Tyson hat-trick at Wycombe. This leaves Kiddy five points below Rushden, who beat former leaders Yeovil 2-0 at Nene Park, leaving the Glovers down to second. Chester lost 1-0 at Darlington, who now occupy the final play-off spot.

Southend, who played last night, beat Bristol Rovers 2-0 to go top of the Division. Scunthorpe have dropped out of the top three for the first time this season after they were held 0-0 by Macclesfield, who are now 5th. Lincoln’s 1-0 defeat at Notts County leaves them 6th, while two goals from Lee Steele were included in Orient’s 3-2 win over Northampton, which drops the Cobblers down to 8th.

In the third division Stockport became the first club to be relegated after they lost 2-1 at home to Brentford. Peterborough also lost 2-1 at home, beaten by Huddersfield to leave Barry Fry’s team 13 points from safety with six games left. Wrexham, who also went down 2-1 at home, this time to Bournemouth, are nine points behind Franchise, but do have two games in hand, while Torquay draw 1-1 at Walsall, to leave them six points from safety. In the Conference, Barnet lost 2-0 at Northwich Victoria, where a win would have sealed the championship for the Bees, but it’s only a matter of time, really.