Robinson: Watching Oxford is a real pleasure right now

Oxford boss Karl Robinson believes it is a “true pleasure” to watch his freescoring side at the moment after they continued their impressive form with a comfortable 3-0 victory over Gillingham.

Two goals from James Henry and one from Matty Taylor inside the first 34 minutes stunned the Kent side and took Oxford’s tally to 16 goals without reply in their last five matches.

Only two fine saves from Gills goalkeeper Jack Bonham before the break, when Henry also hit the post, kept the score down.

It has been a very special eight days for Robinson, who has seen his team set a new club-record away win – 6-0 at Lincoln – and then a 4-0 demolition of Premier League West Ham in the Carabao Cup before this easy victory.

Robinson said: “It’s a true pleasure to watch this team at the moment.

“The players certainly put on a great show again. We’re scoring goals at will.”

All three goals came at the end where the Oxford fans are seated in the three-sided Kassam Stadium, just as the four second-half goals did against the Hammers.

“Kicking towards our fans is really something we enjoy doing and we have a good record here now in this calendar year,” added Robinson, who was also impressed by the performance of loan signing Taylor.

“Matty Taylor is showing his worth now, as are all the players who came in over the summer. But Matty’s goal was the one that was most pleasing to me.

“Our desire not to concede in the last 20 minutes was impeccable.”

Oxford have not conceded a goal in nearly eight hours, and Robinson was able to shuffle his centre-halves with his team three up at the break, trying out the combination of Elliott Moore and John Mousinho.

Gills boss Steve Evans was relieved not to be on the end of a bigger hiding.

He said: “In the first half the gulf between everything they did and everything we did was huge.

“Everything from us was all over the place, but the players knew they had been all over the place.

“We were grateful to get to half-time only 3-0 down.”

Gillingham’s best opportunity came just after the break when substitute Olly Lee rolled a shot against the post with the goal gaping after Oxford keeper Simon Eastwood had lost the ball.

Evans added: “We said to the players at half-time that our objective would be to not lose the second half. And we managed that, and limited them to only one half-chance, while we had two decent chances.

“Their second goal looked offside to me but overall they were much better in everything they did. They’re a good side. Congratulations to Karl.

“They’ll be up there, I’m sure, and we’ll learn from it and get back on the training ground and try to improve.”