Michael Appleton delighted as Oxford maintain promotion push
ByPA Sport
Published 19/03/2016 at 21:00 GMT
Oxford manager Michael Appleton praised the togetherness of his promotion-chasing side after watching them produce an excellent second-half display to beat Barnet 3-0.
Michael Appleton was pleased with Oxford's display against Barnet
Image credit: PA Sport
Callum O'Dowda's brace and a late strike from substitute Danny Hylton gave the second-placed U's all three points at The Hive to move them six points clear of third spot.
Appleton believe shis players are in the right frame of mind to cope with a promotion battle.
Appleton said: "There's a focus about the players and I think everyone can see that now.
"If we're going to get beaten, it's going to take one hell of a performance or a certain team effort from the opposition.
"We've got eight games to go, there are still 24 points to play for, so that's either 24 points to win or lose. We want to win as many as possible.
"It's about having humility, parking your egos.
"I speak to the players all the time. We've got a job to do as a group, as a team.
"We've got a really humble group who've got the same desires. They all want the same thing.
"When it's their turn to play they've got to put in a performance and, if they don't put in a performance, they will be sat next to me.
"We knew that we would have to defend well as a team today, especially set-plays, and they did that manfully.
"We genuinely believed that if we were in the game after an hour we would be able to take the game away from them."
Barnet boss Martin Allen was pleased with his mid-table side's first-half display and felt they were punished for not making their early superiority count.
He is now considering fielding some of the club's youth players with little left to play for this season.
"Let's be honest, that first half they couldn't get out of their own half," Allen said.
"I must admit they did look dangerous on the counter-attack but overall I thought the players gave a really good account of themselves.
"The second half, they came out, they expressed themselves, they got back into the game and it was just disappointing to concede that goal so soon after half-time.
"The game opened up and we all know how dangerous some of their players are.
"We didn't get the goal that I thought we deserved in the first half and then we paid the price for that in the second half.
"We still tried to attack, still tried to get one back and I always fancy, if we do get one back, we can come back and get another one but it wasn't to be today.
"We can't go up, we can't go down.
"I'll have a good think now over the next few days about what we're going to do for next weekend with regard to which players can be playing and, maybe for some of our young lads, what debuts we can give out."
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