United's under 18s were beaten 5-2 by Portsmouth on Saturday.
EFL Youth Alliance
Saturday 12th August 2017
Oxford United 2
Portsmouth 5
Leon Blackmore Such told us:
“Games against Portsmouth are usually really competitive and ones we look forward to ; we have similar philosophies and ways of playing but on this occasion Portsmouth started the better and put us under early pressure and went a goal ahead.
“We responded well and Owen James got us level with a long range effort that he caught well to make it 1-1. We had a foothold after that and worked the ball in good areas, looking good like we did at Cheltenham the week before.
“Then a ball over the top lobbed our keeper Niall Clayton and Freddie Niblett dived to save it on the line like Superman! All he did was push it into the goal so our argument was that the goal should stand and it’s a yellow card, but the ref said he blew the whistle before the goal went in so he showed Freddie a red card.
“So we were down to ten men and pretty quickly were 3--1 down while we were adjusting. We brought Nathan Baker on as centre half and changed the shape and we did OK with ten men, seeing a lot of the ball and creating chances. We scored just before half time when James Cowan sent in a set piece and Matt Berry-Hargreaves headed in.
“So 3-2 at half time but nobody was being negative even with ten men. We came out being positive in the second half but a couple of individual errors cost us; we didn’t concede goals because we were a man light, we conceded them because of our own little mistakes so we have done a lot of work to correct them.
“The game ended 5-2. Sometimes you need a little kick like that when you have had a good pre-season and then won the first game.
“All we can do now is prepare ourselves for the challenge of the game at Plymouth on Saturday.”
Clayton, Carr, Berry-Hargreaves, Chilcott (McCreedie 60), Crooks (Baker 30), Hopkins, Cowan, Heap (Stevens 75), Mannings (Lofthouse 46), James