U's lose out at St George's Park
A young Oxford United side were beaten 4-0 in a behind closed doors friendly against Benfica at St George’s Park this evening. Trailing to two early strikes, the U’s fought back and gave a good account of themselves against the Portuguese champions, and coach Chris Allen believes there were plenty of positives for United.
“Definitely” he said. “We were up against a proper side and make no mistakes a lot of their players will be playing Champions League football in a couple of year’s time. We were maybe a little bit in awe of them right at the start and that cost us because we were 1-0 down after three minutes and 2-0 after ten. But then we started to get to grips with it, settle down and play our own football and we were excellent for the rest of the game.
“We made a couple of individual errors and conceded twice in the second half but you also have to remember that this was only the second game of pre-season for a lot of our lads so to put in the work rate that they did tonight was very impressive. We created chances as well but at times our final pass was not quite right; that’s something we can work on.
“Over all it was a fantastic experience for everyone. Benfica moved the ball so well and were very comfortable even when we got tight but we did really well ourselves and there were a lot of very impressive performances out there.”
United
Crocombe, Hawtin (Trialist 85), Dunkley, Long, Grant, Ashby, Rose (George 70), Ruffels, O’Dowda (Cundy 75), Hoban, Roberts (Humphreys 70)