Gary Rowett hails Oxford’s ‘best performance’ under him after win over Blackburn

Oxford United boss Gary Rowett described his team’s 1-0 Championship victory over Blackburn as “the best performance” so far under him.

Cameron Brannagan’s brilliant 22-yard free-kick in the 67th minute, coupled with a strong defensive performance and some very bright attacking play, gave the U’s victory.

Oxford have won all three home games since he became manager in December and are unbeaten in six league games since his arrival.

“I was super impressed with the players today,” Rowett said afterwards. “It was a different type of challenge against a top-six side, coming here on the back of a good result.

“It was one of those games where I was quite keen to see how we were going to handle it and how we were going to play.

“In our away games, there aren’t so many opportunities to show your quality on the ball, but I wanted us to do that today and I thought we did it really well.

“We started really, really brightly and looked like we had a threat.

“We maybe had a 10-minute spell where we started to be over-confident and invite pressure but then went back to mixing it up again.

“There were loads of good quality moments. Blackburn are a tough side to play against, they don’t give many goals away and many chances away and if we were going to score against them, it was going to have to be a bit of magic.

“We were on the wrong side of a decision where we had a goal chalked off for offside that I don’t think was, but then Cameron steps up after good play from (Siriki) Dembele and drills one into the top corner.

“It was a wonderful finish and certainly a finish to win any game of football.

“It was our best performance since I came in, I thought.

“There were a lot of good things today – Michal Helik coming into the team and I thought he was absolutely outstanding, as was Ciaron Brown alongside him at the back as well.

“I’d like us, greedily maybe, to not invite so much pressure late on. But when we did, we threw everything at it to make sure the ball didn’t go in the net.”

Blackburn head coach John Eustace was confident his team would learn from the defeat.

He said: “We didn’t start particularly well first half but then got into it and had a couple of chances.

“And we didn’t start very well in the second half either, we were sloppy with the ball, didn’t look after it well enough and they punished us with a very good free-kick.

“It’s something we’ve got to learn from. We’re down to bare bones a bit with the squad, with players playing their second or third game in a week when they haven’t been playing much, so we have to take that into consideration.

“We also have to look at the positive side – the last 10 minutes we had a go, again, to try to get that equaliser and just couldn’t put the ball in the net. But we’ve got to learn from today.

“Overall, we weren’t good enough today to come away with anything.

“It’s pleasing to see the boys’ efforts still, pushing and fighting there at the end, but in the end we weren’t good enough.

“We didn’t work their goalkeeper at all in the second half which was disappointing. That’s something we’ll need to have a look at.

“But the lads still put in 100 per cent effort today and we could easily have sneaked an equaliser at the end.”