Karl Robinson was thrilled with his players as they beat local rivals Swindon Town 2-1 at the County Ground last night.
Goals from Brandon Barker and Dan Agyei gave Karl his first derby day win and he told iFollow:
“I’ve won a few times here as a Manager but not as an Oxford United Manager so this one means a bit more.
“I am very proud of my players but was worried at 1-0, then the penalty was a great save but we should have been two or three goals in front by that stage. We should have been out of sight and we missed some great chances again tonight.
“There were “derby tackles” going in and I think Mark Sykes should have gone for his one but also that their lad should have done for his challenge on Elliott Moore. We don’t hide away from things as a football club and Sykesy’s was a bad tackle, but the one on Elliott was out of control. You have to expect a few decisions along the way but from my point of view it was a very strong performance.
“I said to the players afterwards that if you want to win a derby game then win it with the fans biting their nails! I’m sure everyone sat at home will have been nervous because we made it difficult at the end but over all I thought we had control of the game.
“I said treat it like a derby but treat it like you are playing for a place in the top six. Top six teams take away the emotion in these type of games and I thought we did that really well. We were on the coat tails of the top six but this has really closed the gap up now.
“We have an injury list as long as your arm: Cameron Brannagan is injured, Mide Shodipo is injured, but we carry on and keep going and we keep attacking.
“We are proud to wear the shirt for our football club, proud to be associated with it. We know we will take kicks along the way and have to deal with it but we know what this club means. Keep throwing things at us, whatever comes our way: not a problem.”
See the full interview and relive the whole game with Extended Highlights, all in iFollow.