Oxford v Shrewsbury

I'm back to Oxford again tonight for the third game on the trot and it will be interesting to see how U's boss Chris Wilder fares against wily and experienced Shrews manager Graham Turner (more about him below).
Oxford are still looking for their first win, but showed glimpses of what they are capable of on Saturday - despite allowing Bradford back into the game to steal a point. However, better that than showing no potential at all. Chris Wilder will be hoping that his players learn the lessons from that game quickly and increase the pressure on the opposition and kill them off rather than feeling they can coast once they are ahead. I have to say though that Wilder and his players all seemed to be singing from the same hymn sheet after that game. They knew they had goofed and weren't hiding from the fact and I fully expect them to come flying out of the traps tonight to put things right and get their first win.
Shrewsbury's start to the season has seen them pick up two points in the league and notch up a very creditable win away at Derby in the League Cup. But then again, Oxford weren't too far away from beating Championship opposition in the same competition last Wednesday.
It's still very early in the season and I have never seen any point about getting too gloomy (or optimistic) about results until the end of September at the earliest. Having said that, a first league win will take the pressure off whichever group of players chalks it up.
Graham Turner started his managerial career in a player/manager role at Shrewsbury (the club he had turned out for on more that 350 occasions) and did a good job with little resources for six years and took them into what is now League One. This was noted by Aston Villa who appointed him as their boss, but Turner only survived two years before the then Chairman, "Deadly" Doug Ellis, removed him.
Moving on to Wolves - a club at that time in turmoil and languishing in the bottom tier - he masterminded a revival that took them back to the Second Division (now the Championship) and won the Football League Trophy as well. Not a great piece of silverware given the history of the club, but at that time it was a little light relief from the chaos engulfing Molineux.
Leaving Wolves in 1994, Turner took a year out from the game before resurfacing at Hereford. A first season run to the play-offs was followed by relegation to the Conference. Turner resigned, but then reappeared as the club's majority shareholder and Chairman.
Turner combined the roles of Chairman and manager (and from what I saw at the time, barman, cook and bottle washer) as he saved Hereford from financial ruin, took them to three runners up spots and then promotion back into the Football League in 2006. Two season later he took the Bulls up to League One.
Unfortunately the club couldn't survive and dropped back down to League Two, but in his time at the club, he stabilised the finances and even turned a profit in his final six seasons. How many clubs have done that in recent times? Who said footballers don't make good businessmen?
Turner briefly stepped aside to allow coach John Trewick to take on the manager's job in 2009, but then was forced to sack his friend and resume control in March 2010. Shortly afterwards he announced his decision to sell his shares in the hope that new owners could take the club forward.
In the summer of 2010 he returned to Shrewsbury on a three year contract with the option of an extra year as Director of Football. His appointment has had the bookies slashing the odds on promotion and so tonight's encounter will be by no means easy. Let's face it, the bookies are rarely wrong!