MATCH PREVIEW: OXFORD CITY (A)

Oxford City v Boreham Wood
Monday 28 August 2023, 3.00pm
RAW Charging Stadium, Vanarama National League

PREVIEW

Tomorrow Afternoon we travel to Oxford City for our second game in two days. Luke Garrard will be looking to get back to winning ways after no wins in our last three games. Oxford City are yet to win this season picking up 2 draws and 3 losses in their opening five games.

The Hoops achieved promotion from the Vanarama National League South last season via the play offs, they finished third in the regular season picking up 78 points in their 46 games. In the play offs they faced Worthing in the semi-final and came out 2-0 winners setting up a play-off final against our local rivals in St. Albans. Everything went for Oxford City in the final as they scored four first half goals to put the game to bed and secure their promotion to the National League for the first ever time.

Oxford City are yet to win this season picking up 2 draws and 3 losses in their opening five games. The man to watch out for the Hoops will be Josh Parker, the forward was a key figure in helping secure promotion last season. The Antigua and Barbudan international scored 18 goals in all competitions last season. He has already shown he can make the step up to the National League with three goals to his name already.

FORM GUIDE

Boreham Wood- D-W-L-D-D

Saturday saw us take on Oldham Athletic with an injury depleted squad, with only four players named on the bench. Despite that the Wood looked to take the game to Oldham and had many good spells throughout the game, unfortunately the Wood couldn’t find a goal and the game ended 0-0

Oxford City- L-L-L-D-D

Oxford started the season with three losses in a row, losing 5-2 to Aldershot on opening day, 1-0 Rochdale and 2-1 to Chesterfield. In their last two fixtures they faced a FC Halifax Town side that had just beaten Oldham Athletic, the Shaymen took the lead in the first half thanks to a goal from Rob Harker, however Oxford City answered back in the second half thanks to Pierre Fonkeu to secure their first point of the season.

On Saturday they travelled to Maidenhead who have had a positive start to the campaign reaching 8 points in their opening 5 games, however the newly promoted side were able to secure their first clean sheet and hold Maidenhead Utd to a 0-0 draw. Currently Oxford City sit 23^rd in the league with two points and are still searching for their first win.

IN THE DUGOUT?

Ross Jenkins took his first job in first team management when he was brought in as Oxford City’s caretaker manager in January 2022, he was then appointed manager on a permanent basis in March 2022

Jenkins retired from football at the age of 28, he began his career at Watford and made 81 appearances scoring on two occasions. From there the central midfielder had spells at Plymouth, Barnet and Crawley Town before playing in Europe. He finished his career in Scotland, playing for Hamilton Academical FC.