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Scowen a.k.a. The Rat made his appearance, coming on for Gooch, and he proceeded to impress me with his tenacity and deft passes. McLaughlin had to punch away another corner and I was checking my watch at increasingly regular intervals. For some reason, possibly an injury I'd missed, Oxford took off Agyei who'd been their most dangerous player so I wasn't going to question why.
We'd fought back and started to create some serious scoring chances but low crosses from Maguire and then O'Nien went begging. I thought Oxford had equalized midway through the half but the header had hit the side- netting. Cue obligatory wanking gestures towards the Oxford fans to our left. A Flanagan header did the same thing at the other end not long afterwards. Wyke was getting some stick from some fans around me and he was indeed being slow to get to loose balls but he kept hassling till the end. Wright had to go off injured with about ten minutes left and I was pleased to see Oz come on. I'd been hoping to see Lafferty come on for Wyke but when he did finally make an appearance, it was to replace Maguire and he does seem prone to giving away unnecessary free-kicks. Five minutes of stoppage-time were announced, not surprisingly given Wright's injury, and it was a definite cliffhanger as Oxford kept plugging away but the whistle finally went and it was another great win.
Once again we've ground out a 1-0 win in a tough match. Last season we would've drawn this game.
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