It all felt a bit surreal on Saturday afternoon, with our first competitive match of the 2026/27 season being an EFL Trophy tie against an Oxford United side who were relegated from the Championship at the end of the last season. 

The decision to move the first round of the League Cup to the weekend prior to the league programme getting underway was, (rather unusually for modern football!), apparently focused on player welfare: to prevent teams having to play three times in the space of seven days in the first week of the season. However, the fact that we host AFC Wimbledon in the Vertu Trophy, albeit with us likely to field a second-string side, between our league opener at home to Sheffield Wednesday tomorrow afternoon and our trip to Wigan next weekend, partly contradicts that. It certainly didn’t seem to boost the attendance with a reported 3,783 turning up. In fairness the match was scheduled slap bang in the middle of the traditional family holiday period.  

For those that were there, it didn’t exactly turn out to be a classic cup tie to get us all fired up and ready for the season ahead. In fact, it felt very much like a glorified pre-season friendly, albeit in a game in which the result actually mattered. A match that was lacking in terms of goalmouth action (with a grand total of 5 shots on target from both sides combined) was eventually settled in our favour by two goals in the space of three minutes late in the second half. 

The first came from Demetri Micthell who stuck out a leg to volley home a good cross from the left wing by fellow substitute Tony Springett. The second saw Charlie Wellens cut back an inviting ball into the box for the onrushing Idris El Mizouni to tuck home. Our reward for getting through is a somewhat underwhelming trip to League 2 Walsall, back on a Tuesday evening. 

Beyond the result, the performance was more encouraging than some of what we had seen in pre-season. As the signing of new striker Jaze Kabia had only been confirmed the previous day, Theo Archibald was again tasked with filling in as the centre forward. While Theo as expected gave it his all, in truth there were some situations which clearly showed his unfamiliarity with the role. Thankfully when Kabia entered the fray with 20 minutes to go, he looked much more at ease and more natural in that position. Hopefully with a full week’s training under his belt, the former Grimsby man will be available to start tomorrow afternoon. 

Zech Obiero impressed again in an attacking midfield role, and I for one hope he has done enough to convince Richie Wellens to keep him in the squad rather than farming him out on loan again, as for me he gives us a bit more creative spark than many of our other midfield options. 

Once he settled down after some early nerves, I thought Somto Boniface impressed at left back. Isaac Hayden formed the solid central midfield partnership with El Miz that was missing for pretty much all of last season, and Joseph Olowu seemed a lot more solid without the errors we had seen in his previous outings. 

Speaking after the match, Richie Wellens seemed pleased with the way his side had performed, suggesting that for “a brand-new team” we were “tactically good out of possession” and “the signs are really, really good”. He also went on to suggest that this season’s squad is much better than last year’s. It is only one match, and a League Cup match at that, but it is always good to get a win on the board in your first competitive outing. 

Of course, the season gets underway properly tomorrow with the visit of Sheffield Wednesday. It is difficult to know what to expect from the Owls this season. Obviously last season was a complete and utter disaster for them right from the start, which saw them relegated in February thanks in no small part to points deductions totalling 18 points. However, the Hillsborough club are now under new ownership, had a further deduction of 15 points annulled, and have signed a total of 13 new players so far including the highly rated goalscorer Louie Barry.  Having said that, it is likely to take some time for things to settle down, so we have to hope that this is a good time to meet them. 

From our point of view, it is all about building on that initial momentum that we generated in the second half against Oxford and trying to get off to a winning start for the first time since we returned to the third tier three years ago. 

Earlier in the week we got news of two further new signings, both on loan. The first to be announced was 19-year-old striker Nick Oyekunle from Southampton, who scored 10 goals in 15 league games for the Saints’ Under-21s last term and also made 4 senior appearances. The second was defender Alfie Gilchrist from West Brom, who has appeared for Chelsea in the Premier League and in the Championship while on loan at Sheffield United as well as last season for the Baggies. Both players seem very suited to what we need and hopefully will add to our developing squad. Here’s hoping for a positive start to the league campaign! 

Up the O’s!