'I couldn’t stand here': Gary Rowett provides honest assessment of Oxford United's defeat to Burnley
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It was a dominant performance from Scott Parker, who could and should have added further goals to their tally.
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Hide Ad“I couldn’t stand here and say we deserved something out of the game,” Rowett told the Oxford Mail. “Although I do think we had moments in the game.
“What we’ve got to try and do at places like this is start to make those moments a little bit longer and a little bit bigger, but I thought we carried a threat. We got in some good positions without creating as much as we’d like.
“After a good start, they then settled into their game. You can clearly see that they’re a very good side, which is why they’re going to be competing for the top two positions.
“Sometimes when you’re playing against a good side, they stretch you in the way that they do, it makes it very difficult to do anything other than try to be compact. That takes a little bit away from your ability to attack for long periods.
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"I thought as the game went on, certainly in the second-half, there were moments where we started to build a little bit more into the game and started to show a little bit more belief.
“In the last 15 minutes, we got into some reasonably good areas. We had a few moments but I couldn’t stand here and say we deserved something out of the game.”
The decisive moment came just after the half-hour mark, when Helik diverted Josh Cullen’s cross beyond his own goalkeeper.
“The goal was a frustrating moment,” Rowett said. “It ran off us down that inside channel. They were very good at exploiting that left-hand side.
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Hide Ad“It’s quite difficult. They got down that side and overloaded Longy [Sam Long] and utilised the space. It was a little bit of fortune for the deflection.
“They had a couple of moments before that when maybe they’ll feel they should’ve scored. After that, we limited them to very few clear-cut chances.
"But the next step for us is seeing if we can compete a little bit better in these types of games.”
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