Matt Bloomfield has joined Oxford United, following his sacking from Luton Town in October 2025.

Whilst Bloomfield took charge of then-Championship Luton Town, he failed to navigate deeper issues at the club’s core than perhaps anyone anticipated, and it’s worth looking at his best spell as a manager at Wycombe Wanderers to see what Oxford can expect from Bloomfield.

Overview:

Bloomfield re-joined Wycombe at a monumental point in its recent history, with legendary manager Gareth Ainsworth’s leaving to join poisoned chalice Queens Park Rangers. Bloomfield, a club legend at Wycombe, had left it’s coaching staff just six months earlier to manage League Two’s Colchester United, where he helped guide the club from the relegation zone.

Whilst it was apparent that Bloomfield would likely return to the club when Ainsworth inevitably left, it came sooner than many anticipated with Wycombe in a promotion battle.

Following a slow end to the 2022/23 season which saw Wycombe fall out of the playoff race, the 2023/24 season was marked by trial and error. An initial 5-2-1-2 or 5-2-3 would be replaced by a 4-2-3-1. Wycombe did, however also make the EFL Trophy final, where they would lose to Peterborough United.

This system would see Wycombe rise to 10th by the end of the season, and would quickly see Wycombe fired into a promotion race. For a time Wycombe would be higher then even Birmingham, but would later jump to Luton Town with Wycombe in 2nd place in League One.

Following a relegation from the Premier League, Luton were expected to make another promotion charge but had stagnated severely into a relegation battle. Bloomfield was unable to arrest this, and despite plenty of transfers in the summer, would be sacked with Luton Town sat in 11th in League One.

Tactics:

At Wycombe, initially Bloomfield attempted to play a 5-2-3 with aggressive wing backs who pushed high and wide, but this approach was inconsistent and rarely brought out the best in Wycombes players. It’s interesting that this is also the approach that Bloomfield sought to use at both Colchester United and Luton Town.

At Colchester United he had future Young Player of the Season and now Stoke City played Junior Tchmadeu at RWB to aid this, while at Luton he converted natural wingers Gideon Kodua and Millenic Alli into aggressive wing backs.

At both Wycombe and Luton, when this back five approach failed to garner the results wanted, he would eventually switch to a 4-2-3-1 to differing effects. While at Luton this failed to stop his sacking, at Wycombe this had a much greater effect.

Wycombes wingers would look to cut inside while the two fullbacks would similarly push high and wide, causing confusion in opposition boxes. In the first season of use, the striker would typically be Daniel Udoh, Sam Vokes or Dale Taylor, but towards the end of this season and in the 2024/25 season, Richard Kone would come into his own in the position.

Primarily asked to be a goalbox threat, using his technical ability and finishing threat to very simply score. While he may have been asked to win aerial duels or play simple holdup play, he was not asked to drop deep to link play or act as a “false nine”, but instead would spearhead the attack, either getting on the end of chances himself, or drawing defenders away for other players to take advantage of.

It is interesting to note Kone’s goalscoring record took a hit when Bloomfield left, as Mike Dodds would assign him additional work in buildup, even floating onto the wings in attack to link play.

Transfers:

Transfers differed radically during Bloomfield’s era at Wycombe, largely due to the change in ownership from the relatively modest Rob Couhig to Georgian-Kazakstanian Billionaire Mikael Lomtadze.

In the 2023/24 season, Bloomfield largely had control of the transfer operations with Scott Mitchell joining as Head of Player Recruitment, with Blooms trusting him deeply, stating “Scott is someone I’ve known for a long time and I trust his judgement implicitly when it comes to identifying players. He is extremely well-connected across the game and I’m really pleased that he’s agreed to join us.”

Over 20 players would join Wycombe across the 2023/24 season, including nine loans. While a few would go on to make important contributions to the team, such as Franco Ravizzoli, Kone, Luke Leahy and now Premier League started Freddie Potts on loan, many more failed to do so.

Of the five loanees signed in the summer window, three would leave in January (Kian Breckin, Harry Boyes and Killian Philips), and not including loanes, just one player remains at the club today in Leahy, while Joe Low left for compensation to Huddersfield Town and Kone left for Queens Park Rangers for a significant fee.

Following the change in ownership, then acting Director of Football Dan Rice would implement a more data based approach, with Scott Mitchell being sacked by Wycombe in November 2024.

In general, Bloomfield has also shown favouritism for re-signing former players in his already short career. Kodua joined Wycombe on loan twice, as did Chem Campbell.

Kodua too joined Luton Town while Bloomfield was manager, as did former Chairboy Ali Al-Hamadi and former Wycombe loanee Nigel Lonwijk. All had played or trained with Bloomfield at Wycombe.

Conclusion:

In general, Bloomfield is an interesting young manager who may feel he reached for too much, too early. There is no shame in this, as loss is a greater educator than anything else. Frank Lampard similarly did so with Chelsea and Everton (while achieving some form of success at both), and is now one of the Championships best managers.

Bloomfield may be the better for his experiences with Luton, having learnt from the tricky experiences he faced.