Karl Robinson praises Oxford’s desire in win over MK Dons - 7M sport

Karl Robinson praises Oxford’s desire in win over MK Dons



Posted Wednesday, October 21, 2020 by PA

Karl Robinson praises Oxford’s desire in win over MK Dons

Oxford manager Karl Robinson praised his players for their attitude after they notched their first home win of the season to climb off the foot of the League One table.

Their 3-2 victory over his former club MK Dons was achieved with two second-half substitutions coming up trumps.

Sam Long scored with a powerful header just four minutes after coming on to replace injured centre half Rob Atkinson.

And on-loan QPR player Olamide Shodipo sensationally scored with his first touch, his long-range effort going in off a post.

Robinson joked: “I’ve been told I can’t take credit for the first substitution – because it was forced!

“Sam is as honest as they come, and he can play right back, left back, centre half. He’s an ideal professional and is very low maintenance from my point of view.

“Olamide has a lot of talent and QPR probably haven’t seen enough of that, they say.

“But he showed a glimpse of what he can do.”

Robinson added: “The way we triggered things tonight was very good.

“My players’ attitude and desire was very evident, and important. I’m very proud of the effort my players put in.

“We probably weren’t anywhere near our best, but it was against a very MK Dons team who were as tough an opponent as we have faced so far.

“That was a very hard match for us, so I’m delighted to get the three points.

“It was the first time that back five have played together. To be honest, we’ve missed so many chances with not a lot of the ball.

“They controlled possession at times. We’ve got to be more ruthless with the chances we keep getting, that is something we really need to work on.

“But the big thing is that we got the result we needed, and we deserved it probably – in the net.

“And there is a lot more calmness to come from us.”

Matty Taylor fired Oxford in front on six minutes, but Dons levelled through Cameron Jerome five minutes later.

Long and Shodipo put the U’s back in charge, before sub Ben Gladwin pulled a second goal back for MK Dons in stoppage time.

Dons boss Russell Martin said: “We started the game terribly and we’d been working hard in training on exactly the opposite.

“We’d been working on starting better and on dealing with crosses. But we got back into it and were much the better team in the first half.

“And then in the second half we’ve shot ourselves in the foot. It’s not that Oxford hurt us, we hurt ourselves.

“We can’t keep giving stupid goals away. The second goal for them was a free header.

“We keep giving away far too many goals from silly individual errors.

“And we should have done much more than we did from our dominating position in the first half.”

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