Oxford manager Liam Manning admitted to being “deeply frustrated” by his side’s 2-0 Sky Bet League One defeat at Wigan Athletic – believing his players “beat ourselves”.
A goal in either half from Stephen Humphrys and Callum Lang gave the Latics their second win in the space of four days.
But Manning felt the visitors were the architects of their own downfall.
“It’s deeply frustrating, we’ve spoken about it in there,” said the Oxford manager.
“We’ve made loads of progress and build-up in how we control games, which you saw again tonight. There were periods of the game where they allowed us to do that.
“But what you don’t do is give them anything, and unfortunately that’s what we did. If it takes 90 or 95 minutes to keep it at 0-0, and then nick it at the end, or even keep it at 0-0.
“What you don’t do is give away cheap goals, and that was their whole game plan for me – try and frustrate us, try and play on our mistakes.
“Unfortunately we did that.
“I thought there were some terrific moments in the midfield, we managed to play through them, and caused them some real problems.
“Some of the play was excellent, but what you have to do is make sure you get your reward at the end of it.
“Whether that’s care with the final pass, conviction in terms of getting bodies in the box, that was the bit that was lacking.
“I’ve got a huge amount of respect for Wigan, and how Shaun’s set them up, and they’re difficult to break down. But it seems like we beat ourselves.”
For Wigan boss Shaun Maloney, it was another huge step in the right direction – after Saturday’s 2-0 victory at Exeter – following a difficult run of results.
“It was just a really good performance, against a really good team,” he said.
“I thought the performance showed similarities to Exeter, particularly in the first half, when Oxford tried to play through us.
“But I really liked us in the second half as well.
“I’d like to see even more of us with the ball, like the goal we scored in the first half, I want to see more of that.
“Maybe we just needed the platform of being better defensively so we could do what we did in the second half.
“I have to say the mentality of the players was brilliant in the first half, they have to take all the credit.
“The way Oxford played in the first half, finding the spare man, I thought the recovery we showed in shutting down the space was really, really good.
“We built a squad that I said, at the beginning of the season, I wanted to be really attacking.
“We have to find that right balance with the defending, and in the last two matches I feel we have.
“It’s four goals and six points, but we have to be ready to go again, and it’s back to work ahead of the weekend.”
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