Opposition verdict after Oxford United add to Hull City's growing woes

Oxford United manager Des Buckingham hailed the spirit and determination of his side after beating Hull City 1-0.

The U's were battered in the first half at the Kassam Stadium, riding their luck as City carved out some good chances with Xavier Simons, Kasey Palmer and Abdus Omur all passing up good chances, while Mohamed Belloumi hit the post.

It took until the 44th minute for the hosts to have their first effort on target when Hidde ter Avest forced Ivor Pandur into a good save, but 10 minutes into the second period, he poked in what proved to be the winning goal and end their eight-game winless run.

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“It was a different type of performance with a very different set-up to what we’re used to. The pleasing thing was that we got the result," Buckingham said. “We knew that Hull would want to play in the areas they want to play in, and we worked extremely hard.

“We’d done a little bit of work on that last week, not necessarily on Hull, but in that formation and that shape, to make sure we didn’t have to throw everything on the players come this week if we wanted to change to it.

“We just put a lot more detail around that when we trained. The players took it on board extremely well, and from minute one, it was to press and press aggressively early, or whether it was to sit in and block the way we did, certainly after the goal.

“It was so important to making sure we came away from here with the three points. When you change shape, and you’re asking players to do slightly different roles, it does leave yourself exposed at times when they’re not used to it. We corrected a couple of those things at half-time, and that made us a lot more secure in the second half, out of possession certainly.

“And then I’ve said this all along, I said it last year, but more importantly I said it this year, we know we are one of the smallest clubs, if not the smallest club in the league for many reasons.

“We have to be extremely smart about how we set up because of that. There’ll be games where we have a lot of the ball, and there’ll be games like this where we want to sit off in a block and make it difficult for the opposition, and frustrate them to then break on them. I’m delighted for Hidde on his first start to get the goal which ended up winning the game.”