adminGary Rowett has warned his Oxford players to stop being average if they want to avoid a Championship relegation battle this season.
Rowett was furious with his team’s listless display in the opening 30 minutes as they fell to a 1-0 defeat at Wrexham on Wednesday night.
The result undid much of the good work that went into last Saturday’s 1-0 home win over Derby, and continued Oxford’s poor run of away league form since winning promotion to the Championship in 2024 – they have won just three out of 29 matches on their travels
One of those three wins came in April at Sheffield Wednesday, where Oxford return this Saturday looking for a positive result to pull themselves up from 20th place.
The players will go to Hillsborough with head coach Rowett’s frustrations fresh in their minds – as he made his feelings clear after defeat in north Wales was secured by Nathan Broadhead’s 14th-minute winner.
“I got pretty angry after the game because I’m fed up of seeing us perform really well in one game and then looking like a completely different team for the first 30 minutes of the next game,” Rowett said.
“So we can do a lot of talking but ultimately, that’s the hallmark of an average Championship side.
“And we don’t want to be an average Championship side because we know if we’re average, the reality is we’re going to be fighting once again to try and stay in this league. So yeah, we’ve got to put more consistency together than that.”
Oxford did show more threat once Rowett brought on striker Will Lankshear for winger Stanley Mills at half-time to give his team a more attacking shape.
It was Lankshear who had Oxford’s best chance, seeing his header clip the top of the crossbar after Brian De Keersmaecker’s free-kick had bounced through to him at the far post.
But they were unable to find an equaliser even though they were playing against 10 men for the final 23 minutes after Wrexham defender Callum Doyle was sent off for a wild scything challenge on Siriki Dembele.
And the margin of defeat could have been wider, as former Oxford loanee Sam Smith was denied twice late on by keeper Jamie Cumming, who made an outstanding stop to tip the first of those efforts on to the bar.
“I don’t know what it is because we’ve got a good mentality as a group,” Rowett said.
“I would never question that.
“I would never question our energy, but we just didn’t run enough with any urgency to stop them doing what they wanted to do for the first 30 minutes.
“It’s always important to learn from games like this. But I don’t want to keep learning in away games. I did enough of that last year.
“We know what we’ve learned. We know what we need to do. I think it’s just a case of creating a little bit more consistency in the team, and in the performances.
“I think that’s been the most frustrating bit.”
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