Goals from Carly Johns, Emily Allen and Daisy McLachlan clinched a 3-1 victory over Keynsham for oxford United Women as their season restarted on Sunday, a performance which underlined the high work ethic of the team according to Manager Liam Gilbert.

“We knew that it was going to be an interesting first game back, obviously with the lockdown and the 10 days since we have been allowed to train and play together again. To be fair to the girls they didn’t stop working until the 95th minute, which is always something which we are preaching, and they did that by getting the two goals at the end.

“This is a very honest, hardworking group, and you can see that in the way that they score these goals and celebrate with each other. The way that they have applied themselves and carried out the game plan is brilliant.

“They were all well taken goals; Carly has nicked it off the defender for the first one and it was good intensity from her to press and win the ball. It’s something which we asked the players to do, to go and win the ball back from Keynsham, which resulted in the goal. Emily took her goal fantastically, it was a nice counter-attack goal, and then Daisy rounded things off nicely with a good close-range finish.”

Meanwhile, goalscorer and Player of the Match Allen reiterated her delight to simply be back on the pitch after The U’s pause to the season.

“To be honest, it’s just good to be back playing. It’s been seven or eight weeks maybe since the Cardiff game, so it’s gone very slowly. It’s nice to be back playing with the girls and we got the win in the end.

“We’ve obviously worked hard during lockdown, and since we’ve been back in training the girls have put in a real shift to be fair. We played an in-house game last week which was really good in getting us prepared for today.

“I thought it was a tough game; Keynsham were really well drilled, and they made it really difficult for us. But I think it shows our grit and our determination to know that even with 82 minutes on the clock we can still create chances and still score goals, so it was a good performance in the end.

“We’ve now got a nice trip down to Plymouth just before Christmas, but again we will work hard in training this week and we’ll be ready for next week.”

Click HERE to watch all of the action from Sunday’s 3-1 win.