Oxford United are looking to get their automatic promotion push back on track as they face Carlisle United away from home this weekend in League One.
Carlisle United currently sit 23rd in League One with four wins, eight draws and fourteen losses from twenty-six games this season.
Carlisle’s introduction to life in League One has been rough, as Paul Simpson’s side find themselves second bottom in the league table following their promotion via the League Two playoffs last season.
They’re coming into this game typically out of form having won just one of their last eleven games in the league.
Their most recent game saw them fall to a 2-1 defeat at Exeter City, an underwhelming result given that game was a decent chance to build on their 2-1 win over Port Vale the week prior.
Three of their four wins in the league have come on home soil this season and they’re entering this one having lost only one of their last four games at home, so they’re clearly a much tougher proposition in front of their own fans.
They’re still only six points from safety but they’ve played one game more than every other side around them so they can ill afford to keep falling further behind.
A win here isn’t likely, but Oxford have shown themselves to be very vulnerable in recent weeks so don’t write it off entirely.
Oxford United currently sit 5th in League One with fourteen wins, four draws and seven losses from twenty-five games this season.
Oxford came into the campaign as one of the favourites for automatic promotion and during the first two months they looked well worth that tag, but things have become much more uncertain over the last couple of months and their confidence appears clearly dinted.
They’re coming into this game in mixed form in the league having won three and lost two of their last five, the most recent of which was a 2-1 win away at Charlton Athletic thanks to goals from Mark Harris and Oisin Smith.
The three points were welcome for Des Buckingham’s side after some deflating results, but they followed up that win with two poor losses as they were beaten 6-2 by Coventry City in the FA Cup before losing 2-0 away at League Two AFC Wimbledon in the EFL Trophy on Tuesday night, despite fielding a very strong starting XI.
Oxford are quite blatantly a different side to the one that started the campaign and they’re fighting to get back on track as automatic promotion contenders, but the likelihood is that they’re now just playoff contenders.
There’s still plenty to play for, but Oxford right now are very beatable.
For our Carlisle vs. Oxford prediction, we’re going for a 1-1 draw.
Don’t forget to check out the rest of our previews, tips and offers for this weekend’s action.