teams in the tournament. He voiced his own frustration about the matter but also asked Oxford supporters to attend the game. "The more support we can get on the day, the better. All we can promise as a club and as a team is that we'll be going all out to try and win the game and bring a bit of silverware back," he commented in an interview with BBC Radio Oxford. Coventry City sold around 42,500 tickets for the match, outnumbering the opposition fans. The referee for the match was Chris Sarginson, who had officiated Coventry once during the league season, a 0–0 draw with Oldham Athletic in December. His most recent game involving Oxford was a goalless draw at Exeter in 2014. The assistant referees were Neil Radford and Matthew Parry, with Dean Whitestone named as the fourth official. Chris Husband was the reserve assistant referee. Robins made a number of changes from the side that had beaten Bristol Rovers in the previous league game, including the replacement of Ollie Clarke by Chris Stokes, and Lameiras playing instead of Jones. First team goalkeeper Lee Burge played in goal, rather than Reice Charles-Cook who had played in the semifinal against Wycombe. Oxford named a close to full strength side with midfielder Ryan Ledson returning from international duty with the England under-20 team and Maguire being declared fit to start after injury worries. Joe Rothwell retained his place after playing well in the previous league game against Bury. The weather on the day of the final was sunny and fans of both sides arrived at the game with what journalists covering the match for BBC Sport described as "club-based paraphernalia that only seems to make appearances on days like this". Former Coventry manager John Sillett, who had led the club to their FA Cup win 30 years earlier, appeared on the pitch before the kick-off and made a speech to the club's supporters. The national anthem before the game was sung by Natalie Rushdie, performing in her fifth appearance at a Wembley event. The attendance at the game of 74,434 was at the time the highest for the EFL Trophy at the new Wembley Stadium since its opening in 2007. This record was broken in the 2019 final between Portsmouth and Sunderland. First half The match began at 14:30 BST, with both sets of supporters singing loudly. After a quiet