{"id":703066,"date":"2026-01-17T23:18:17","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T23:18:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/703066\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T23:18:17","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T23:18:17","slug":"oxford-united-0-0-bristol-city-stalemate-start-for-matt-bloomfield","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/703066\/","title":{"rendered":"Oxford United 0-0 Bristol City: Stalemate start for Matt Bloomfield"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><b class=\"ssrcss-1xjjfut-BoldText e5tfeyi3\">The Matt Bloomfield era began for Oxford United in uninspiring fashion with a goalless draw against Bristol City at the Kassam Stadium.<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The former Luton Town boss has inherited a precarious situation with the U&#8217;s fighting against relegation from the Championship and a point was valuable in that respect &#8211; as was a first clean sheet in 17 games &#8211;  but it is now one win in eight for the club.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Bloomfield watched on from the stands for last weekend&#8217;s FA Cup tie against MK Dons but took the reins from interim manager Craig Short for the first time for the visit of a Robins side whose play-off push has stalled.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In a game of few chances, Gerhard Struber&#8217;s Robins were disappointing as an attacking force.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Oxford could have won the game in added time after Stanley Mills had been put through by Jack Currie but his shot was blocked by the legs of Radek Vitek.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It was one of only two saves the Manchester United loanee, returning from injury, had to make all game with the first, also from Mills, coming in the 72nd minute.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The visitors had just one shot on target all game, a long-range effort from Sam Morsy in the first half dealt with by Jamie Cumming.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The result was at least something to build on for Bloomfield as he begins his mission to save the U&#8217;s from the drop.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It was the first of four games within the space of 15 days that could go a long way to deciding their fate with QPR, Leicester City and Birmingham City to come during a busy spell.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Bloomfield brought Will Vaulks on at the interval for Yunus Konak who had been booked for a late tackle on Scott Twine and there was greater urgency about Oxford after the break.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But despite the late effort of Mills and defender Ciaron Brown, who had a late header blocked by Bristol City substitute George Earthy, they were unable to break the deadlock.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Matt Bloomfield era began for Oxford United in uninspiring fashion with a goalless draw against Bristol City&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":703067,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8818],"tags":[381,748,393,4884,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-703066","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\/115912999075520530","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703066","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=703066"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703066\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/703067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=703066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=703066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=703066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}