The U’s are in the thick of a relegation battle at the wrong end of the Championship table
Sam Long of Oxford United
Oxford United star Sam Long admits the international break has come at the wrong time, after their four-game unbeaten run was ended at Southampton.
The U’s looked to be heading back to League One after two seasons in the Championship, before three straight wins and a draw breathed fresh life into what had looked like a fruitless bid for survival.
That mini-run was ended on the South Coast, and attention for Matt Bloomfield’s men now turns to the Good Friday meeting with Hull City at the Kassam Stadium.
Long believes the form they showed before losing at City’s play-off rivals was promising, and having an enforced two-week break is far from ideal when they had momentum from those three successive victories.
City, who saw their five-game winning run on the road ended emphatically by West Brom in their last away outing, responded to that setback by seeing off already relegated Sheffield Wednesday last time out.
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With 10 away wins already under their belt, and a push for promotion well underway, Sergej Jakirovic’s men know three points in Oxford are vital to their own quest, especially with a home game against Coventry City to follow on Easter Monday.
“We’re in a good spot, and I think it’s probably coming at a bad time if anything,” Long told BBC Radio Oxford. “But we’ll take it anyway, and we’ll use it to rest up, recoup and go again after the break. There’s a points total that we’re aiming for as a target, and that’s all we’re focusing on.
“If we focus on ourselves, I think we did it last year and look what happened, and if we do the same, I don’t see why we can’t do exactly the same as what we did last year.
“It’s disappointing, but if you’d have told us five games ago that we’d be in this position, any Oxford fan, player or staff member would’ve snapped your hand off. We’ve shown a lot of character to show that we’re fighting to obviously stay in this league.”
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