{"id":292161,"date":"2025-07-26T02:33:47","date_gmt":"2025-07-26T02:33:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/292161\/"},"modified":"2025-07-26T02:33:47","modified_gmt":"2025-07-26T02:33:47","slug":"match-preview-oxford-united-v-bristol-rovers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/292161\/","title":{"rendered":"Match Preview | Oxford United v Bristol Rovers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Opposition&#8230; \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>After spending several seasons in Sky Bet League One, Oxford earned promotion to the Sky Bet Championship for the 2024\/25 season via the play-offs, defeating Bolton Wanderers 2\u20130 at Wembley. This marked a major milestone, as it was their first time back in the second tier since the late 1990s.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Under boss Gary Rowett, the U\u2019s have become known for their strong defensive discipline but struggle to score goals. Their 17th-place finish last term saw their two joint top scorers finish on six goals for the campaign.\u00a0<br \/>\u00a0<br \/>So far in the pre-season, Oxford have spent most of their time in Indonesia competing in the President\u2019s Cup, where they reached the final against Port F.C. However, they were defeated 2-1 by the side from Bangkok.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Oxford have been active in the summer window so far, bringing in two new faces to bolster Rowett\u2019s side. Brian De Keersmaecker, a 24-year-old Belgian midfielder, signed from Heracles Almelo and Brodie Spencer, a 21-year-old Northern Ireland international right-back, signed from Huddersfield Town. These additions will aid Oxford in their upcoming campaign in the Sky Bet Championship as they look to cement themselves as regulars in the division.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Opposition&#8230; \u00a0 After spending several seasons in Sky Bet League One, Oxford earned promotion to the Sky Bet&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":292162,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8818],"tags":[381,748,393,4884,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-292161","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bristol","8":"tag-bristol","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114917203513616116","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=292161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292161\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/292162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}