Gary Brabin was disappointed with his team's performance in the 3-1 defeat at Oxford on Tuesday night and called for the players to raise their game and match their performance against Wrexham.

Reflecting on the game overall, he was also clearly aggrieved at an early refereeing decision: "They should have been down to ten men in the first minute," he stated, referring to Oxford captain Joe Burnell's high challenge on Robbie Willmott inside the first 15 seconds.

"But none of those decisions seem to go for us. Having said that, we should be used to that every week; we should have regrouped, we should have started the first half better but we never seemed to get out of second gear.

"We came in at half-time one-nil down and I had a bit of a pop, and I thought we reacted better second half. We looked well in control, we equalised and I thought we would get another, but for some reason we just conceded two sloppy goals and we've been beaten by a side that look a completely different one than we've heard about for the last few weeks.

"They looked like a top five side today - which is what I actually expected. We've had all the reports, we know they've had a bad start, but at the moment teams are playing us and their managers are under pressure and they're putting on the performance of their lives."

Brabin had to make two enforced changes to the team, with Anthony Tonkin ill and Chris Holroyd restricted to a brief appearance from the bench after his hamstring tightened up following Saturday's match, and the manager reluctantly pointed to his long injury list.

"Today I don't mind admitting for the first time that we missed Andy Parkinson, we missed Anthony Tonkin, we missed Courtney Pitt, we missed Mark Beesley and I think we missed Chris Holroyd," he commented. "I only put him on for the last 20 minutes because we were worried about him - so I'm going to use my excuses today.

"The second half was better but I want us to be better than that. We've shown in certain games that we can play football, we've shown in certain games that we've got a bit of steel, and the one time we've put it all into practice was against Wrexham at home.

"I expect that from the lads - I think I've got a great bunch of players here, a team that should be pushing for promotion from this league, but I want us to wake up and push on because I'm not happy with that today."

United would have come in level at half-time had Danny Crow converted a golden opportunity from close-range with the net at his mercy, but Brabin refused to blame his recent signing: "Should have equalised, should have been playing against ten men, should have done this or that, but at the end of the day we're not doing it and I feel like it's excuses after excuses and we just need to start putting things into practice.

"I feel we're not getting the rub of the green but and we need to be better than that."

The U's are next in action at home to Grays Athletic on Sunday 28th September at 3pm. There is a special introductory 'Family Ticket' offer for this match - click here for full details.

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