Joey scores one of his brace against Bristol City in a 3-0 win on 2nd October 1999

Oxford United welcome Bristol City to the KasStad on Saturday for their first game in the new Matt Bloomfield era. We, naturally, expect an instant upturn in form, performance, and results, and anything else will leave us crying into our Sunday morning Cornflakes.

The U’s actually have a decent record against these particular Robins in Oxford, having lost just three of the 22 games we’ve played against them at home.

The first meeting with City was in Oxford’s debut Division Two season in 1968, when the sides fought out a goalless draw. United’s first win over the Robins came the following season, when two goals from Brian Lewis earned a 2-0 win.

United’s first home defeat by Bristol City was in October 1972, when the visitors won 2-0, but the following meeting, in December 1973, saw Oxford run out 5-0 winners at the Manor – our best result against them so far – with Oxford’s top scorer Graham Atkinson scoring twice, plus further goals from Hugh Curran, Colin Clarke, and Nigel Cassidy.

Oxford remained unbeaten at home by these Robins until a 4-2 defeat in 1988, after which the U’s went throughout the nine home games of the 1990s without defeat, until a 1-0 reverse in September 2000. That was the last meeting with the red bit of Bristol until last season’s 1-1 draw, when Greg Leigh scored United’s goal.

You can see all of United’s results against Bristol City HERE.

On this Date

This has not been a regular date for Oxford, with just 10 games played on this date since the side turned professional in 1949. Of those ten, the U’s have won three and lost four (you can work out for yourselves how many were drawn).

Oxford’s first win on the 17th January was in 1970, with a 1-0 victory over Norwich City at the Manor in the second tier. The first defeat came 18 years later, also at home in Division Two, when the side went down 2-1 to Charlton Athletic.

United’s last three outings on this date were all at home. In 2009 the U’s beat Altrincham 1-0 in the Conference, followed by defeats against Southend United in 2015 (3-2) and a year later to the other Bristol team, who won 2-1.

HERE are all Oxford’s results on 17th January.

The Match

Not only is this Matt Bloomfield’s first game in the United dugout, it’s also potentially the first game for new Turkish signing Yunus Emre Konak, who has signed on loan from Brentford until the end of the season. This is the first Turkish player to join the U’s, a fact which makes us ridiculously excited.

Bloomfield will be hoping to deliver Oxford’s first victory since the 2-1 Boxing Day win over Southampton as the U’s look to climb out of the bottom three of the Championship. To do so, they will have to beat a Bristol side sitting in 10th place and with a decent away record.

City have lost just two of their past six matches, including a 2-1 defeat on the road at Millwall. The game represents another opportunity for United to complete their first Championship double, having failed to do so at Ipswich Town on New Year’s Day. Oxford’s 3-1 win at Ashton Gate in September was both Oxford’s first away win of the season and City’s first home defeat.

We don’t expect Bloomfield to make sweeping changes to the side, although it will be interesting to see what shape he adopts for his first outing. We’re fairly certain that Jamie Donley won’t be involved after coming off with a concussion and a shoulder injury on his debut in last Friday’s FA Cup tie at Milton Keynes, although we wouldn’t be too surprised to see Myles Peart-Harris start after he replaced Donley after 15 minutes.

I guess that whether or not Konak starts depends on how fit Cameron Brannagan, Will Vaulks, and Brian De Keersmaecker are following the FA Cup tie. Up front, with Nik Prelec apparently injured, we’d be astonished if leading scorer Will Lankshear doesn’t get the nod, but it’s the three behind him (depending on formation, of course) where there are more question marks.

Przsemysłav Płacheta will almost certainly miss out after he was injured at Ipswich, so it’s likely that Stan Mills will start on the right (unless we sign this South Korean lad we’ve been linked with in time for him to play – if we’re excited about signing a Turkish player, you would not believe how thrilled would be to bring in this one). Sadly, Siriki Dembélé did himself no favours with his performance last Friday, but it might be a case of making do, with the only other option Filip Krastev, who is far better played centrally, especially with Tyler Goodrham missing.

All speculation and fun and games but it does give an indication that the one thing the side requires is a settled line-up, with Bloomfield having to make decisions for most positions (possibly including goalkeeper following Matt Ingram’s heroics at Stadium MK).

It’s a big football week for Oxford United next week, with six games in nine days: Bristol City at home in the Championship on Saturday; Middlesbrough at home in the Women’s FA Cup on Sunday; QPR at home in the Championship on Tuesday; Colchester United at home in the FA Youth Cup on Thursday; Leicester City away in the Championship next Saturday; and Cheltenham Town at home in the Women’s National Southern League Premier Division next Sunday.

Bring it on!