Unlike when I managed Huddersfield though, with Oxford I wasn’t able to win the trophy in normal time, and it did in fact take penalties to defeat my fellow finalists Crewe Alexandra. 1-1 the game finished, Oxford took the lead when Aidan Stapleton scored in the 13th minute, but Crewe would later equalise through Martin Paterson in the 51st minute of the match. The game ultimately went to penalties, and it was my Oxford team that won through with a 4-1 penalty shoot-out victory.
It was Emile Sinclair who scored the winning penalty for Oxford; a man that is still yet to score for the club in normal play. Brought in as a replacement for Jamie Guy that just couldn’t seem to find the net last season; Sinclair appeared 11 times for the club last season, failing to score in any of the games that he played. Jamie Guy meanwhile was given a free transfer to Plymouth, scoring 10 times in 22 appearances. Guy wasn’t able to do a lot for us last season, he helped Plymouth rise up the table though, and the player we replaced him with sadly flopped.
Fast forward to the 2015/16 pre-season campaign and Jamie Guy has returned on a free transfer, Emile Sinclair is being moved to the left wing, last season’s top scorer Luke Hobbs has now been signed, and his strike partner Vince Asante has sadly moved to Norwich. We finished in 7th last season, just outside the play-offs, but this season we’ll be looking to go one better and actually make the play-offs/hopefully achieve promotion. Last season problems arose when nine of our first team squad were out injured, and most importantly; Luke Hobbs became unavailable. Without Hobbs in the team the goals just weren’t flowing, and although at one point we were pushing for automatic promotion, injuries saw us slide down the table and fail to make the play-offs by a single point.
Here’s last season’s league table:
We now have a few new players in the squad, have let go a couple that weren’t needed, and I feel that the quality and depth of our squad is now far greater than it was last season, so if we do once more suffer from mass injury then hopefully we’ll be able to cope, and not plummet down the table as was the case last campaign.
We’ll be looking to win the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy again this season, and whilst an automatic promotion place would be preferable; I’ll be more than happy if we can get in the play-offs, and if promotion can be achieved then that really will be amazing.
Last season I was offered jobs with such Premier League clubs as Cardiff City, Fulham, and Newcastle United; I must say that I was very tempted at times to jump ship and once more try my hand at managing a Premier League team; I’ve still a job to do at Oxford though, and until we’re promoted to the Championship I’m remaining at the Kassam.
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