This Week's Opposition: Oxford United

Jake Smith shares the key facts and important numbers behind the Blues' first opponent of the 2025/26 Championship season.

Championship football returns this weekend after 98 days away for Pompey and the first challenge posed for John Mousinho is his former employer, Oxford United.

MANAGER

The U’s came up from League One with Portsmouth in 2024 and, alongside Derby County, also managed to retain their second tier status for the forthcoming campaign.

This week’s opponents are however now led by Gary Rowett, who succeeded Des Buckingham last December.

The former Burton Albion, Birmingham City and Derby boss has won 9 and lost 9 of his 26 competitive games in charge of the club so far.

ONE TO WATCH

20-year-old striker Will Lankshear has been chosen as our one to watch on the opening day of the new season.

He signed for Oxford as recently as Tuesday, arriving on a season-long loan from Premier League side, and reigning Europa League champions Tottenham Hotspur.

Lankshear has yet to score a goal at senior level despite making 11 appearances on loan at West Bromwich Albion last term, however brings plenty of excitement from his commendable goalscoring record in England’s youth development leagues.

He was the top goalscorer in a season in which he captained Sheffield United to the Under-18 Professional Development League Division 2 title in 2021/22, bagging 38 goals in 48 appearances in total across The Blades’ different age set-ups before moving to Spurs for £2million.

TOP SCORER

Seeing as the new season is yet to begin, we’ll instead highlight last year’s top scorer.

Welsh forward Mark Harris claimed that accolade despite only managing a total of 6 goals across all competitions.

The 26-year-old wears the number 9 shirt for Oxford.

CURRENT FORM

Gary Rowett’s side go into the new campaign off the back of 4 wins, a draw and 2 defeats across pre-season, which concluded with a 3-0 victory over Spanish second division side Malaga last weekend.

Preparations began with a trip to Indonesia to compete in the President’s Cup, in which they beat Liga Indonesia XI 6-3 and Arema FC 4-0 before losing by 2 goals to 1 to Port in the Final.

Last term, The U’s finished in 17th position, 1 place below the Blues in the Championship standings, after picking up 53 points.

Pompey managed a 2-0 victory at the Kassam Stadium last time out between these 2 sides - Mark O’Mahony sealing the win late on after Andre Dozzell’s opener.

The match-up at Fratton Park in the reverse fixture last October produced a 1-1 draw.

Will it be opening day joy for John Mousinho and Portsmouth?

Find out and catch all of the unmissable action LIVE on Express FM from 2pm on Saturday (August 9th) afternoon - Pompey Live returns with full coverage of the Championship season opener at the Kassam Stadium and will be fronted by Jake Smith, Kirsty Roxanne and James Wilson.