Oxford United had to settle for a point against Reading on Saturday but will grow stronger from now on in. That was the message from Boss Des Buckingham after Saturday's 1-1 draw at the Kassam Stadium.
"I thought we were good in the first half and deserved the 1-0 lead we had" he told iFollow. "Then the second half was scrappy and we needed to take control of certain situations and kill off the chaos and play the way we want because when you take the lead you have control of the game.
"Instead I thought we allowed Reading to dictate a little bit too much in the second half. We have to learn from that and when we go a goal in front we have to manage that better.
"It’s the second game at home recently where the opposition has only had shot on target but we know we can play better and we have to keep attacking teams and putting pressure on them because whether you allow the other team one chance or ten, they still could go in.
"We had ten players unavailable today in total having lost three more after Portsmouth so we had to rejig things and a couple of players had to play out of position. But we spoke about sticking together and making sure that we continue to pick up points right now, even in games where the performance isn’t quite there.
"We’ll start welcoming players back now and that will help, we had Owen Dale and Jay Matete come on as subs so they will strengthen the squad. We will grow stronger game by game, and that starts from now.
"The fans came in numbers, the atmosphere was wonderful in a full stadium for derby day and we have to make sure we win games like that to send everyone home happy. When there’s a draw nobody is happy with it so we have to make sure we repeat what we did in the first half, we have to prepare properly and we have to make sure we travel up to Blackpool for the next game and come away with three points rather than one".
See the full interview in iFollow right now