Salford were comfortably beaten 3-0 by Notts County at Wembley to miss out on promotion to League One and a match with Matt Bloomfield’s Oxford in the third tier next season.

Alassana Jatta, Lucas Ness and Jodi Jones scored the goals to down the Ammie at Wembley.

Robinson led the club to a fourth-placed finish, narrowly missing out on third place and the automatic places by one point.

Salford City manager Karl Robinson after the Sky Bet League Two play-off final at Wembley Stadium, London (Image: Steven Paston/PA Wire)

City edged past Grimsby Town in the play-off semi-finals 4-3 on aggregate.

The defeat at Wembley last month was the second play-off final loss in Robinson’s managerial career after the 45-year-old suffered with the U’s in 2020.

United lost to Wycombe Wanderers, captained by current Oxford boss Bloomfield, in the League One play-off final in lockdown.

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Karl Robinson in charge of Oxford United (Image: David Fleming)

Joseph Jacobson scored the winner from the penalty spot after Mark Sykes had cancelled out Anthony Stewart’s ninth-minute opener for the Chairboys.

The U’s reached the play-offs again the following season but lost 6-3 on aggregate to Blackpool in the semi-final.

Robinson had arrived in OX4 in 2018 and left five years later in 2023 when he was dismissed following a run of eight games without a win.

The Mgroup Stadium played host to a smattering of former football stars including Souness, Southampton legend Matt Le Tissier and ex-Aston Villa and Oxford United striker Dean Saunders, with Souness’ team – DEBRA Legends – winning the mini-tournament.

Souness is president of the charity called DEBRA which supports and looks for a cure for Epidermolysis Bullosa (EB), also known as ‘Butterfly Skin’.

The 73-year-old won three European Cups and five First Division titles in a six-year stay at Liverpool and also played for Tottenham Hotspur, Rangers, and Middlesbrough.

Souness went on to manage both the Reds and the Gers, as well six other clubs including Newcastle United and Blackburn Rovers.

Graeme Souness managed DEBRA Legends at the charity match held at Oxford City (Image: Andrew Milligan/PA Wire)

The former Scottish international returned to the dugout for the charity match in Oxford and spoke exclusively to the Oxford Mail.

“It’s a fun day,” Souness told the Mail.

“It’s all about awareness [and]…awareness means money.

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“Money means we can do something for these kids. I’ve been involved with Debra for seven years, and it’s only now that we’ve started to make inroads and help these children.

“We’re now repurposing drugs…and we’re getting results with it.

“There’s no reason why any of your listeners should know this, but if we discovered a drug today, it’s 10 to 15 years before it can get licenced, and it’s tens of millions of pounds to do that.

“We don’t have that kind of money. Big pharmaceuticals won’t go near it because there’s not enough people suffering from this, so they won’t throw money at it to find a cure for this.

Graeme Souness on the touchline at Oxford City (Image: Oxford City FC)

“So we’re left to paddle our own canoe, and our canoe can only be paddled if we get more and more people on board. And that means awareness, which ultimately means raising a few more quid, which enables us to fund more repurposing of drugs.

“To repurpose a drug, it’s costing us about half a million quid for one drug, and there must be, I don’t know the exact number, I think we’ve got three on trial at the moment, but we’re looking to be trialling 10.

“So it’s big money.

“I love football. Football has been so kind to me. It’s great to see some old faces, big ones here who I’ve known forever.

“It’s just great to be amongst some old people, that’s where I feel most comfortable.”

The match at Oxford City was sponsored by NUTMEG! – a nostalgic football manager game, set in the ’80s and ’90s. Manage the teams and iconic players from England’s top four divisions, and relive the glory days when tackles were hard and a goal was a goal.

After relegation from the Championship last season, the U’s are looking to make moves in the upcoming summer transfer window whilst also looking to trim the edges of the squad ahead of their return to League One.

Links to potential arrivals have already begun to circulate.

However head coach Matt Bloomfield previously stated that the Yellows squad would not need a complete overhaul as they prepare for the third tier.

There is some dead weight making up squad numbers though, and outcast Louie Sibley is the latest to be linked with a move away from the club.

According to AllAboutLeagueOne, Sibley has drawn interest from MK Dons who were promoted from League Two last season after finishing second behind champions Bromley.

The Buckinghamshire outfit are reportedly keen on signing the 24-year-old who has fallen well out of favour in OX4 after joining the club in the summer of 2024.

Fans with U’s player Louie Sibley (Image: Andy Ffrench)

The ex-Derby County man arrived at the Kassam after the U’s won promotion to the Championship via the play-offs under former head coach Des Buckingham.

Struggling to make his mark on the side and scoring once in 14 Oxford appearances in his first season, Sibley went out on loan to League One in January 2025, joining Rotherham United.

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He scored two minutes into his debut and played 21 times for the Yorkshire club, bagging two goals in total and one assist.

Playing just five times last season for the U’s, Sibley went out on loan again to Bradford City this past January but featured only four times for them and fell out of the matchday fold altogether from February onwards.

In total, the former England youth player has managed only 19 matches across two seasons for United with only one goal and one assist to his name.

Gary Rowett instructs Louie Sibley (Image: Mike Allen)

He has never featured under head coach Matt Bloomfield who arrived in early January and so the expectation is that Sibley will be allowed to leave this summer.

The midfielder is one of a number of fringe players whose futures are up in the air ahead of the 2026/27 campaign.

Other names include Peter Kioso, Siriki Dembele and Greg Leigh amongst a potential few others.

Players linked with joining the U’s so far include Colchester United’s Kyreece Lisbie – who has met with the club amid interest from Reading – Grimsby Town’s Jaze Kabia and Charlton Athletic defender Alex Mitchell.