Gary Rowett reckons his Oxford United side produced their best performance yet to secure a narrow victory against Rovers.

Rowett, who took charge at the Kassam Stadium last month, knew that John Eustace’s side would be tough to break down.

The former Birmingham boss expected it might take a moment of magic to win the game and was delighted that it came through Cameron Brannagan’s free kick

“I was super impressed with the players,” Rowett told The Oxford Mail. “I thought it would be a different type of challenge, a team that are in the top six coming here on the back of a good result.

“It’s one of those games where I’m quite keen to see how we’re going to handle it and how we’re going to play.

“It’s been a while since we’ve been at home. I think away from home, where you perhaps don’t have as much control and don’t need to show as much quality on the ball at times, but I wanted us to do that today.

“I thought we did it really well. I thought our build-up play was good and we started really brightly. We looked like we had a threat.

“We maybe had a 10-minute spell where we started to be overconfident and invite a little bit of pressure and those sorts of pressing moments, and we got caught in our half a little bit.

“Then, we went back to mixing it up again, hitting the odd diagonal and playing in behind occasionally to then open space.

“There were loads of good quality moments. They’re a tough side to play against, they don’t give many goals or chances away and if we were going to win the game, it was going to be a bit of magic.”

John Buckley and Callum Brittain went closest for Rovers, who were unable to find an equaliser in the latter stages.

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