Oxford United

A Kemar Roofe stunner gave Oxford United all three points at Bristol Rovers on Sunday. Both sides ended the game with ten men but Roofe’s  fifth goal of the season earned the U’s all three points and moved them up to fourth in the League 2 table. 

“There were obviously a lot of decisions that proved factors in the way the game panned out” Michael Appleton told Yellow Player HD. “We knew when it was eleven against ten that they were going to play a little but deeper and look to hit us on the counter attack but then when it was evened up it went a bit see-saw and end to end. Once we got the goal they had a right go at us and we had to stand firm.”

The red cards for Ollie Clarke and Liam Sercombe saw the game ebb and flow.

“I thought their lad led with his arm but it was a yellow probably” Michael said, “and then I didn’t think that them going down to ten men did us any favours at all.  And for Liam Sercombe it was certainly a yellow card for the second but I’m just not too sure about the first.”

Victory came at a price though with Roofe going off injured after what looked like a dislocated shoulder. With Johnny Mullins having missed that game after rolling his ankle in training and Sercombe now set to miss Saturday’s game at Northampton, Michael is confident that the depth of his squad will give him plenty of options:

“We will probably have to wait a couple of days to really know how sore Kemar is. Hopefully the shoulder just popped out and back in straight away and we can work with it. I’ve had that injury myself and know how painful it can be but once it does settle down then you tend to find players recover pretty quickly.

“We don’t want to find ourselves having too many injuries because we don’t have the biggest squad, but certainly when they do come along we believe we have players with that bit of quality who are looking to come into the side and show what they can do.”

See the whole interview plus the thoughts of Sam Slocombe plus extended highlights of the game in Yellow Player HD.