Rangers won’t have Ben Davies contract regret as defender struggles with Oxford United
Rangers sanctioned a loan move for out-of-contract defender Ben Davies to Oxford United in August 2025, but he hasn’t enjoyed a fruitful spell with the EFL Championship side.
Upon signing for Rangers from Liverpool in the summer of 2022, Davies penned a four-year contract at Ibrox.
As such, the 30-year-old is scheduled to become a free agent at the end of this season, and his Rangers future was effectively confirmed last summer.
Joining Oxford on a season-long loan deal in this season’s summer transfer window, Gers thus all but confirmed that he’d be leaving Glasgow when his deal expires at the end of the campaign.
And, with just seven games to go in Oxford’s Championship season, Rangers won’t be regretting their decision ahead of the summer transfer window.
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How has Ben Davies performed with Oxford United?
Rangers splashed £4million to sign Davies, and on top of handing him a hefty wage packet, this transfer has certainly been one of the more disappointing moves by Gers in recent years.
With Anfield pedigree and numerous campaigns playing in English football’s second tier, Davies looked to have been a shrewd investment by Rangers.
| Davies’ 25-26 EFL Championship stats | Result |
|---|---|
| Minutes per game | 65 |
| Tackles per game | 0.6 |
| Balls recovered per game | 2.8 |
| Total duels won | 62% |
| Aerial duels won | 60% |
| Dribbled past per game | 0.5 |
For a little while, it was, as he made 38 total appearances in his debut 2022-23 campaign at Ibrox, as his side narrowly finished second to Celtic in the title race that term.
However, a combination of some injury issues, increased competition and inconsistent performances saw his role soon reduced, before being loaned out to Birmingham City for the duration of last season.
Now with Championship Oxford United, he’s only been able to muster 10 league appearances for the U’s this term, who are currently sitting 23rd of 24 in the table, and staring at relegation to League One.
As per Sofascore, Davies has been a part of zero clean sheets for Oxford this term, has won just 0.6 tackles per game and blocks 0.6 shots per game.
He’s registered an expected goals (xG) of 0.17, created zero big chances or played any key passes, has a 50 per cent long ball success rate and is dribbled past an average of 0.6 times per game respectively.
All in all then, it’s been a very underwhelming season for him at the Kassam Stadium, and should he indeed hit the free agent market this summer, it looks unlikely he’s done enough to win a contract with Oxford.
What did Davies say about Rangers when joining Oxford?
It’s through no particular fault of Davies that his Rangers move hasn’t worked out, and he wasn’t even a poor performer for Gers when turning out for them.
The size of his transfer fee has worked against him in terms of expectation levels, and when speaking about his time in Glasgow upon joining Oxford, it’s clear that he loved his time at Ibrox and has a lot of respect for the football club.
“Rangers is a top football club where, the demand is high and the fanbase is incredible and they demand that you win,” he told Oxford’s website via BirminghamLive at the time of his move.
“So I think that that’s something that you can definitely take moving forward that demand to win and the demands that you need to put on each other to perform.
“Being up there has definitely helped me grow as a person and as a player.”
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