Jamie Donley's first Oxford goal brought Matt Bloomfield's men a 1-0 victory over Blackburn in a crunch relegation battle at the Kassam Stadium - and a third straight win for the first time since they returned to the Championship in 2024.

Donley netted in the 34th minute, following up after Blackburn keeper Balazs Toth could only parry Myles Peart-Harris' header from a right-wing cross by Stan Mills.

Will Lankshear and Peart-Harris missed two other glorious chances to score and make it a more comfortable night.

The win was not not enough to lift Oxford out of the bottom three but they moved to within a point of Blackburn in a fierce battle at the bottom of the table.

Before kick-off there was an immaculately observed minute's silence in memory of Amelia Aplin, a 15-year-old goalkeeper in Oxford's Academy who died after collapsing during an under-18s match against Fulham last weekend.

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Oxford boss Matt Bloomfield named an unchanged starting line-up after the excellent 3-1 victory at Preston, which brought the club back-to-back wins for the first time in over a year.

And his team made a bright start which should have resulted in a goal in the sixth minute. Cameron Brannagan released Mills on the right and from his pass across the face of the goal, Will Lankshear somehow failed to connect cleanly and missed the target.

The U's continued to press and Donley twice got behind the Rovers defence, as did Mills who then cut back and saw his low shot saved.

Blackburn defender Sean McLoughlin was yellow-carded for bringing down Lankshear when he raced towards goal and only the fact there was a covering defender saved him from it being red.

Home fans must have been wondering whether their team might pay for missing good chances after Mills shot into the side netting from a good position 10 yards out.

But right on cue, on-loan Tottenham forward Donley fired them in front.

Rovers had few dangerous moments in the first half, having to wait until the 44th minute for their first corner and the same length of time for their first shot, an overhead kick effort by Moussa Baradji going well wide.

Michael O'Neill must have delivered some strong words for his side during the half-term break because they came out for the second half with much more purpose and intent and caused the U's a few problems for the first time.

It needed some strong defending by Ciaron Brown to stop Rovers equalising and Baradji had another hooked attempt, this time easily saved.

Oxford missed their second gilt-edged opportunity of the game on 55 minutes when Yunus Konak picked the pocket of a defender but Peart-Harris produced a weak low finish, which Toth comfortably saved.

The managers

Oxford's Matt Bloomfield:

"It was very bitter-sweet tonight. What we wanted to do, more than anything else, was to pay tribute to Amelia and her family in the correct manner, giving her family and her team-mates the respect they deserve and for them to join us on the pitch.

"Both sets of supporters observed the minute's silence immaculately and thank you to them for that.

"Tonight was about dedicating the evening to Amelia, she'll live forever in our hearts, her family will be friends of the football club forever and we had to make sure we paid the best respects for such a devastating loss for her family.

"We wanted to perform properly. I thought we were very good first half, some of the football we played, some of the pressing, the energy we showed was really good."

Blackburn's Michael O'Neill:

"I was disappointed with the result, obviously, and disappointed with the performance, especially the first half.

"I thought second half we were better, but first half we just made too many errors, lacked quality in possession, made poor decisions and invited pressure against a team set up to press and force you into mistakes.

"We were poor in that first half and that's where we lost the game. We are conscious that we've only got two fit strikers and in a three-game week we didn't want to play both of them.

"But overall, it doesn't matter what system you play if you can't take care of the ball and we gave the ball away cheaply, and we lacked quality in the final third.

"We've had three defeats and a draw now but we've got nine games left, and we've just got to try to maximise what we can take in those nine games - the squad is extremely stretched, there's no doubt about that."

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