The U's Matchzone

Three Talking Points as Oxford Lose at Coventry

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Oxford United’s first away game of the season ended with a late defeat on the road to Coventry.

The U’s came from behind twice but conceded a stoppage-time goal following a mistake from Will Vaulks to lose 3-2.

Here are three talking points from the game.

Starting Line-Up

Following their opening-day win over Norwich, Des Buckingham kept the same starting eleven for the trip to Coventry.

Jamie Cumming started in goal behind a back four of Sam Long, Elliott Moore, Ciaron Brown and Joe Bennett.

Vaulks, Cameron Brannagan and Ruben Rodrigues were the midfield three with Przemyslaw Placheta, Tyler Goodrham and Mark Harris as the front trio.

Matt Phillips and Idris El Mizouni came on after impressing in the Carabao Cup win over Peterborough before Louie Sibley entered the field and Dane Scarlett made his U’s debut late on.

Resilience

This is almost two parts under one section, as the U’s showed resilience in a couple of ways.

Firstly, Buckingham has said that he wants his team to play with an identity. That takes courage, having gone up a league and going away to a team that will be tipped by many to secure a top-six finish.

But despite that, that’s exactly what the U’s did. Free-flowing, attacking-minded football was what Oxford did over the course of the game, and it worked for the most part.

The other section to this is resilience to come from behind twice. The Ricoh was bouncing with over 28,000 fans in the stadium, and it could have been easy for the U’s to drop their heads when they conceded, but they stuck to the game plan and fully deserved two equalisers in the game.

Losing deep in stoppage time was a gutting way for the game to end, despite a late Sky Blues onslaught.

Super Jamie Cumming

We said last week that Jamie Cumming being handed the number one jersey would be his to lose with the arrival of Matt Ingram, but his performance at the Ricoh certainly won’t have done him any harm in keeping the spot.

The shot-stopper made several wonderful saves during the game, particularly in the final ten minutes during a late Coventry pressure with the scoreline still level.

Unfortunately, Cumming was unable to keep out the winner, which came six minutes into stoppage time, but it was a brilliant display nonetheless.

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