Oxford United suffered their first defeat of the season yesterday after Karl Robinson’s side lost 2-1 at Blackpool.
But both managers agreed that the U’s were the better side, and were unlucky not to pick up the points themselves.
Robinson told the Oxford Mail: “First and foremost thanks to the travelling fans, thanks to my players. Everything we’re working on, they’re doing. It’s evident what we need.
“We got applauded off by the (home) fans around us. People were saying what a good football team we are. I thought we dominated for 86 minutes. The first goal we switched off early on from a set-piece. The next one isn’t a penalty and they score from that.
“We still haven’t conceded a goal from open play and then we miss chance after chance “There’s not much more my players can do, other than we’ve got to bring a striker in.”
The U’s fell behind from a corner after just five minutes, and Blackpool doubled their lead from the spot, which Robinson felt was a soft decision. His side were also denied two penalty appeals in the second half but praised the performance of his side rather than criticising the officials.
“Why nit-pick over bad refereeing when we should be focusing on how well our players played. They had tremendous energy, I don’t think many better teams will come here this year and perform like that against a very good Blackpool team.
“You’ve got to show them tremendous respect, but equally we were by far the better team.”
Blackpool boss Simon Grayson also applauded the performance of the visitors.
He said: “We’ve won a game which I’m delighted about. When I analyse it I think we were second best in all departments. I thought we were two or three yards off the pace. They’re a good team and if you don’t stop them by getting tight they can hurt you.
“We just didn’t seem to have that spark about us, but we ground out a result to get three points.
“I’m sure Karl will be disappointed they’ve not got anything out of the game because I think they deserved to get something. I think there were decisions where both teams will maybe look back on and think they were a bit controversial.
“I think we could have had another penalty in the second half, but really we’ve got something out of the game that we probably didn’t deserve to.”
The U’s turn their attention to Tuesday night when they welcome Burton Albion to the Kassam Stadium, which is followed up by a trip to Bristol Rovers on Saturday.
