Access all areas – Oxford United: ‘We want to be the best-run club in the EFL’

What a difference from last season for Oxford United.

Following a bright start, everything unravelled after Christmas: Oxford failed to win in 17 games from January to April, Manager Karl Robinson was sacked in February and they avoided relegation to League Two by the skin of their teeth.

Now, they are in the promotion race, third in League One, after a successful summer overhaul.

Liam Manning, the manager who kept them up, was poached by Championship side Bristol City last month only eight months after replacing Robinson, which has led to Manning’s fellow City Football Group alumni Des Buckingham (above, left) returning to the hometown club where he was a youth-team player and later an academy and first-team coach.

Off the pitch, Oxford have plans for a new £100million stadium, in Kidlington, a few miles north of the city, that they feel can be ready for the 2026-27 season — which is handy as their lease ends at the three-sided Kassam Stadium that has been their home for the past two decades. They hope moving to a fresh venue will bring in an extra £4m a year in revenue.

“The stadium is going to be a world-class venue,” chief executive Tim Williams says. “I want us to be the best-run football club in the Football League. Our aim is to be a steady, stable Championship club.”

The Athletic was granted behind the scenes at a club with big ambitions before last week’s match against fellow promotion candidates Bolton Wanderers.

Oxford have not been relegated since 2006, which is when they dropped out of the Football League — the lowest point in their history. But they came close to it happening again this year.

Robinson had steered the club to the League One play-offs twice since being appointed in March 2018, including the final in 2020 when they were unlucky to lose 2-1 to neighbours Wycombe Wanderers, but the fizz of those days had turned flat. Following a seventh defeat in eight games — a 3-0 defeat at home against Bristol Rovers — Robinson was sacked in late February.

Manning, who had taken MK Dons to the League One play-offs the previous season, arrived two weeks later and, after a tough start, managed to guide the team to safety by two points and restore a sense of optimism.

Oxford tried to build on that with a summer recruitment drive led by Manning and head of recruitment Ed Waldron. Ruben Rodrigues, Josh McEachran, Mark Harris and Greg Leigh were signed, while talented trio James Beadle, Stanley Mills and Kyle Edwards arrived on loan.

This new-look Oxford side are currently third, six points behind leaders Portsmouth and three adrift of Bolton in the fight for the division’s two automatic promotion places.

Manning jumped ship for Bristol City after just 29 games in charge, a move that upset many fans who felt he had shown little loyalty, while others grudgingly accepted he had to take the opportunity to manage in a higher division.

Oxford were eager to bring in a replacement with a similar coaching grounding and philosophy, so turned to Oxford-born Buckingham, hired away from Indian top-flight club Mumbai City.

Buckingham has come full circle after starting his coaching career with the academy at Oxford, where he had been a goalkeeper. He enjoyed playing but coaching became his real passion after the late Mickey Lewis took him under his wing.

After being promoted to help with the first team in 2013-14 during Chris Wilder’s time in charge, he joined Wellington Phoenix, first as a coach then as the youngest manager in A-League history at age 31. Next he became head coach of New Zealand Under-20s and Under-23s, then assistant coach of the senior national team. After that he was assistant manager of City Football Group’s (CFG) Melbourne City before becoming head coach of sister club Mumbai City, who finished top of the Indian Super League last season after an 18-match unbeaten streak.

“There’s a nice romantic side to it, but it was always a football decision for me to come back here,” Buckingham tells The Athletic in his office at the training ground — a stone’s throw from the city’s famous Mini car plant. “It feels very comfortable to come in and almost pick up again.”

Players not involved in that evening’s match train before the visit of Bolton (Tom Burrows/The Athletic)

Buckingham’s last game before he left for New Zealand was a late 2-1 home win against Dagenham & Redbridge on December 14, 2013, when he was 29. Almost exactly 10 years on, he says his experience managing in three other countries has taught him a lot as a manager and a person.

“When you grow up in one place, you only know one way of doing something,” he says. “Going overseas gave me a chance to look at how different football landscapes operate. I got a bit deeper into who I am and what I am and that has really helped me in my coaching.”

He said it was exciting that more clubs are now willing to hire managers who had worked their way up from academies rather than returning to the same old faces. Buckingham was brought into the City Football Group after his work with the New Zealand Under-20s at the 2019 World Cup — reaching the last 16, which was the nation’s best performance in a FIFA men’s tournament — caught their eye.

His first job at CFG was as assistant to head coach Patrick Kisnorbo at Melbourne City, helping them win the 2020-21 A-League title, before getting the top job at Mumbai City, who are majority owned by CFG, where he stayed for two and a half years.

“When I was in Mumbai the idea behind how we set that team up… we couldn’t play like Manchester City, but the principles we had were very similar — the idea was if you were to put the TV on, you’d be able to work out it was a CFG team playing,” Buckingham says.

“Liam (Manning) was at Lommel in Belgium, one of the CFG teams, and the way he worked and the way he’s got this team set up, you can see a lot of similarities. And that was the one thing when I spoke to Tim (Williams), they were very clear: ‘This is what we’re doing as a club, this is what we’re looking for, that (sort of) fit’. It wasn’t changing everything. Everything is here.”

Buckingham’s first win came this past Saturday, 2-0 against Grimsby Town in the FA Cup second round, which was sandwiched by a goalless draw with Bolton on his home debut four days earlier and a 1-0 win at Forest Green Rovers on Tuesday to reach the last 16 in the EFL Trophy. But at the time of his chat with The Athletic, his only match in charge was a 2-0 away loss against struggling Cheltenham Town.

“My last game before Cheltenham was at Mumbai. We played (in the Asian Champions League against Saudi Arabian club) Al Hilal, who have got (former Fulham striker Aleksandar) Mitrovic up front and Ruben Neves (Wolves’ captain last season). So it was a very different feel coming from that to Cheltenham.

“I’ve been around the club and the English football leagues for a long time, (although) not as a head coach; I know a lot of it and it was exactly how I thought it would be.”

Buckingham, still clinging on to the remnants of a winter tan from his time in India, was understandably nervous before facing Bolton in his first match in front of Oxford’s home fans, yet it is clear when speaking to him that he is desperate to succeed at a club close to his heart.

In the warmth of the players’ lounge is midfielder McEachran, who grew up in Oxford.

He played for Garden City, a team in the Kidlington district, before joining Chelsea, at age seven. He stayed until he was 22, having been tipped as one of England’s brightest talents as a teenager when he made his debut in the Champions League as a 17-year-old. After spells with Brentford, Birmingham City and MK Dons, he’s home again.

“The atmosphere has been really good since day one of pre-season,” McEachran tells The Athletic. “There’s a real togetherness with everyone. I’m really enjoying my time here.

“We’re towards the top, fighting for promotion, so Des has come in at a good time — there doesn’t need to be massive changes. I don’t think style-wise he’ll change much, as he’s also from the City Football Group.”

McEachran is 30 and eyeing a coaching career (Pete Norton/Getty Images)

McEachran, now 30 and studying for his UEFA B coaching badges, reflects on his experiences in football.

“I went to Chelsea at seven and it was a massive part of my life. I had a lot of loans (five in all), went to Holland (a loan to Vitesse Arnhem), I came back at Brentford, where I felt I did well, but I’ve had to deal with a lot of injuries. That is mentally draining. I’ve still played around 350 games in my career.

“Football is a cut-throat industry but I’ve still loved every moment of it. As a young kid, all I ever wanted to be was a footballer, and that dream came true.

“I am coming to the end (of my playing days) but hopefully I’ve got a few more years left in me. I’ve still got that love and hunger for the game. I want to help Oxford as much as I can now. There is a real buzz around the place, everything is going in the right direction. We’ve got everything we need, but we need that new stadium — it will be massive for the club and the city.”

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Oxford have played at the Kassam Stadium since 2001 but, to the fans, it has never felt like home in the way its classic old-school predecessor the Manor Ground did — the place where the club played during their heady days in the top flight in the 1980s under British tycoon Robert Maxwell’s ownership, the decade where they also won the 1985-86 League Cup.

This is because of its awkward design, with three stands and one open end, and the fact its business-park location feels isolated and lifeless compared to the busy London Road in the residential district of Headington, where the Manor Ground was.

They had to move from the Manor Ground following the Hillsborough disaster in April 1989 and the subsequent Taylor Report in January 1990, which recommended all-seater grounds. Two other stadium proposals in Oxfordshire were rejected before plans were approved for a site at Minchery Farm, on the southern outskirts of the city. Building began in 1996 but stopped a number of times and only restarted in 2000 when the club’s new owner Firoz Kassam stepped in. He then named the 12,500-seater stadium after himself.

However, Kassam’s relationship with the fans quickly deteriorated. He sold the club in March 2006 but his company, Firoka, retained ownership of the stadium. He still owns the commercial development around the ground. Kassam rejected then chairman Darryl Eales’ plans to put up a fourth stand in 2016 while The Priory, the popular pub closest to the ground, that was leased to Firoka by Oxford City Council, shut in 2013 and never reopened.

Oxford must leave the stadium by the end of June 2026, when the lease ends.

“The Kassam is such a terrible missed opportunity. If you put the fourth stand on, you’ve got a really great stadium,” says Williams. “It could have been incredible.

“The problem with the Kassam is a lot of people look at it in the same way as they’ve looked at the club for 20 years which is, ‘Nearly got there, but didn’t quite’. And that’s what we need to avoid. Whereas now with the new stadium, that’s a catalyst for going, ‘We’re going to be the best club we can be in the best stadium that we can have’.”

The Kassam has never been completed with a fourth stand (Nigel French/PA Images via Getty Images)

Oxfordshire County Council has agreed to lease land to the club, known as the Triangle, between the northern suburb of Kidlington and the city’s ring road, for the new stadium which will cost “north of £100million”. A neighbouring site, at Stratfield Brake, was initially put forward but the council later said that posed “considerable challenges.”

The stadium plans at the Triangle would include a 180-bed hotel, restaurant, conference centre and community plaza. The club would want to use the new stadium for their women’s team, and Williams says there would be nods to the club’s history at the new venue, including a Manor archway and moving the bronze ox sculpture that currently stands outside the Kassam.

He says the club’s Indonesian owners, Anindya Bakrie and Erick Thohir, formerly owner of Inter Milan and MLS side DC United, who became majority shareholders in September last year, are fully behind the project.

The site is greenbelt land and a short walk from Oxford Parkway, which is one stop north of the city’s mainline train station. Some local residents are concerned about the plans because of the extra traffic and noise. The proposals are subject to planning permission from Cherwell District Council, but with the clock ticking for Oxford’s days at the Kassam, is there a Plan B if consent is not given or the stadium is not built in time?

Oxford United’s proposed new home (AFL Architects)

“You would look to groundshare for a short amount of time but the reality is not having a stadium is not an option,” Williams says. “Yes, there’s a Plan B but it’s a very short-term Plan B. We’ve been hugely supported by the county council. There’s an acknowledged existential need for this or else there’s no club, there’s the reality.

“If we get planning permission in reasonable time, with relatively few issues, we have time to build this for the 2026-27 season. There is time, it’s tight, but I’m as confident as I can ever be.”

And if they do get the green light, could they sell out a 16,000-seater stadium?

“I still think we’d be at 80 or 85 per cent occupancy,” Williams says. “In the Championship, we’d sell out; we’d smash it. There would be an excess demand over the supply.”

Williams, originally from Yorkshire, arrived at the club in October last year after working at Manchester United as group financial controller, then as chief financial officer at Inter.

“The club I arrived at was a bit sick, a bit poorly,” he says of Oxford. “We’d become a bit of an apology as a club.

“I don’t think we were prepared to stick our necks out and say, ‘Hang on a minute, we are a football club in a globally recognised city and we are not shouting about it anywhere near enough. Let’s define what it means to be Oxford United. What does Oxford as a city stand for? It stands for technological and manufacturing excellence. Well, why can’t we stand for sporting excellence?’.

“I want us to be the best-run football club in the Football League.”

As for ambition on the pitch: “We want to be a steady, stable Championship club,” he says. “The goal is to be ready for the Championship long before we get promoted (to it).”

The new stadium would have a 16,000 capacity (AFL Architects)

Following Williams’ appointment, former Oxford player Steven Kinniburgh joined as academy manager and Waldron returned as head of recruitment after 18 months with six-time French champions Bordeaux.

Waldron has worked his way up after first joining the club as an intern in the performance analysis department in 2017.

Now, he explains Oxford’s strategy in the transfer market. He says the club identify players from Premier League 2 (the English top flight’s under-21s league), young players lower down the footballing pyramid or at Oxford’s level. They have also had success signing players from Irish clubs, such as Gavin Whyte (now with Portsmouth), Luke McNally (sold to Burnley last year), Mark Sykes (Bristol City) and Stephan Negru.

Waldron says: “We use a lot in terms of data; we’ve got a metric built around what we want, our playing style, the club’s philosophy. The data is massive but our primary source of identification is still the eye, watching games live.

“We’re at 250 games now as a department live this year; (on) video, in the thousands. Me, personally, I did 160 live last year. You can’t just sign a player on data, the two have to be aligned.”

That night, at a freezing Kassam, Oxford picked up a creditable 0-0 draw against Bolton in Buckingham’s first game at home to keep themselves firmly in the promotion picture.

In the directors’ box, Williams was full of praise for Oxford’s performance, talking up Everton loanee Mills’ potential and seemed content with a point against impressive opposition who look likely to be in the Championship this time next year.

Pulling away from their unloved three-sided ground, you sense Oxford United are now heading in the right direction on and off the pitch.

(Top photos: Tom Burrows/The Athletic; AFL Architects)