Oxford boss Liam Manning hailed his team’s comfortable 3-0 win over Shrewsbury at the Kassam Stadium as “another professional performance”.
The U’s briefly went back to the top of Sky Bet League One, only for Portsmouth’s late winner against Wycombe to leave Manning’s men in second place, but with a four-point cushion over third-placed Bolton.
Oxford’s goals came from Fin Stevens in the 17th minute, Ciaron Brown on the hour-mark and Greg Leigh in stoppage time, with the Shrews not helping themselves as Joe Anderson was sent off just before the second goal for a second yellow card.
Keeper Marko Marosi was at fault for the first and third goals.
Manning said: “It was a really professional performance because we restricted them to very little, and arguably could have scored more goals.
“This was another experience for the team, seeing how we could break down opponents when we had a lot of possession, and later when they had 10 players.
“We are playing with confidence and we wanted to make sure the intensity is there, and the discipline and we had that.
“Our first goal was wing-back to wing-back – Leigh to Stevens – and it was nice for Stevens to get his first goal – it’s important to us that everyone chips in.”
Left-back Leigh, who was sent off against Port Vale and then away on international duty, is now Oxford’s second highest scorer.
Manning said: “Yes, Greg had an interesting start to his career here, but you could see last Saturday the quality he has and what he brings to us.
“I actually thought we had more quality against 11 players in the first half than we did against 10. But it was another new experience and good test to see how we managed the game against 10 men.
“We’ve got options coming off the bench and depth, it’s a strong group and people need to be ready for when they come in and get a chance.”
Shrewsbury’s head coach Matty Taylor admitted he was angry with his players.
Taylor said: “It was always going to be tough coming here against a good team and when you make the errors we did that makes it even tougher.
“Out of possession I thought we were in control but we made three bad errors and got punished for it.
“And making errors is uncharacteristic for this group of players.
“There has been a conversation in the dressing room and the players, who are obviously disappointed, understand why I am angry.
“With the first goal Marosi should catch it and doesn’t, and the third goal – coming all the way out there – is something he doesn’t need to do.
“He has been consistent for us, and he needs to get back to being consistent for us again.
“I have no arguments with the sending off. I’ve looked back at it and yes, it’s two yellow cards.
“But apart from the three errors and three goals, I think our keeper’s only had one real save to make.
“I think 11 v 11 we would have created more chances, but going down to 10 men and then conceding a second goal from that free-kick made it impossible for us.
“We need to regroup and make sure we don’t do this again. I am really angry because that is not a reflection of the types of players we have got at this club.
“We didn’t make the correct decisions as often as we have in previous games. The players now need to be positive for what is a massive and difficult game against Northampton on Saturday.”
Real Madrid hit Twente for seven, five-star Wolfsburg also win big
Real Madrid had six different goalscorers as they trounced Twente 7-0 in the Women's Champions League on Wednesday, while Wolfsburg beat Galatasaray 5-0.
Signe Bruun opened the scoring three minutes into the Group B encounter at the Estadio Alfredo Di Stefano, then Maria Mendez's header gave Madrid a 2-0 half-time lead.
Madrid, who had won one and lost one of their opening two games in the tournament, got a third through Naomie Feller five minutes into the second half, then Caroline Weir made it 4-0 with a brilliant free-kick.
Mendez headed home her second of the encounter shortly after the hour mark, while Oihane Hernandez and Carla Camacho got on the scoresheet late on to complete the rout.
The victory took Madrid second in the Group B standings ahead of Chelsea's trip to Celtic.
Wolfsburg were also convincing victors in Group A, getting off the mark for this season's competition as Rebecka Blomqvist scored a hat-trick in their 5-0 thrashing of Galatasaray.
The Bundesliga side – who failed to pick up a point or score a goal in their opening two matches – had a narrow 1-0 lead at half-time through Joelle Wedemeyer, before Blomqvist took centre-stage in the second period.
She tapped home after Janina Minge struck the crossbar, then added her second goal in the 77th minute and her third six minutes into stoppage time.
Vivien Endemann powered home a fifth for Wolfsburg one minute later, as they provisionally moved within three points of Lyon and Roma ahead of their meeting.
Taylor pleased with City's physical test during Hammarby win
Manchester City head coach Gareth Taylor was pleased with how his team stood up to the physical challenge of Hammarby in their 2-0 Champions League victory on Tuesday.
City's win extended their unbeaten start to the season, having won every game in all competitions following a 2-2 draw against Arsenal on opening day.
“Difficult game for us, physical challenge, a physical team in Hammarby. I think they outnumber us a little bit in terms of size, considering when you look at our midfield. But I thought the girls handled it really well," Taylor said after the game
“I thought we dominated the game. In the early parts we were just a little bit off in our final action. We just needed to speed up a little bit in terms of being on the end of it, and we spoke about that at half-time, and we score with Laura getting into that type of position we’d been talking about.
“[The physicality was something] we were prepared for, but dealing with it is a different thing. Having Bunny [Khadija Shaw] and Alanna [Kennedy] on the pitch, two of our more physical players, is really important, particularly for set-plays.
“At 1-0 we were defending a couple of scenarios like that, Yama [Ayaka Yamashita] making a really good save at one point. Then Aoba [Fujino] got the goal that maybe allowed us to change things up a little bit more, get some people off that we’d like to manage.
“I think the girls have dealt with it really well tonight. We expected it, we thought it would be difficult, and they rose to the challenge.”
The victory leaves City top of their Champions League group with a 100% record after three matches, three points above second-placed Barcelona.
Taylor had made changes to City's starting XI, with Lauren Hemp among the trio to drop out from the weekend and she did not feature in the squad. Ahead of their weekend game against Chelsea, who are second in the WSL, Taylor explained the reasoning behind Hemp's absence.
“We’ve just got an issue with Lauren that we just need to analyse a little bit further, that’s all," he said.
“It’s something that potentially happened in the Palace game [on 3 November]. She was able to play in the Tottenham game [last Friday] but wasn’t able to tonight, so we’ll just take a little bit longer to assess and find out more.
“Hopefully [she can play against Chelsea]. There’s an opportunity there, we’ll just have to take a moment tomorrow, have a good conversation and find out where we’re at with the medical staff.”
Al-Riyadh 0-1 Al-Nassr: Mane hands visitors bragging rights
Sadio Mane's first-half strike ensured Al-Nassr maintained their unbeaten start to the Saudi Pro League season with a 1-0 win over rivals Al-Riyadh.
He smartly finished from close range in the 41st minute, with his goal enough to seal the three points and move Al-Nassr up to third in the table.
Al-Nassr's threat grew as the first half went on, with Milan Borjan making a fine double stop to deny Ronaldo and Talisca once again before Mohamed Simakan struck the post on the rebound.
Mane would eventually break the deadlock in the 41st minute though, darting in front of his marker to meet Abdulrahman Ghareeb's low cross and rifle it into the roof of the net.
The Senegalese striker arguably should have doubled his tally before the break, but was denied by Borjan's stretching save when one-on-one with the Canadian.
Talisca should have wrapped up the points in the final three minutes, but he blazed over an empty net from close range, before having a late goal disallowed for offside.
Data Debrief: Derby delight for Al-Nassr
After drawing their last two matches, this win was a welcome result for Al-Nassr as they racked up their sixth victory of the season to close the gap at the top of the table to six points.
It is just the second time Al-Nassr have avoided defeat in their first 10 matches of a Pro League campaign, last doing so in 2013-14, when they won the league title.
They are now unbeaten in their last seven Pro League derbies (W4 D3), their longest such streak since a run of nine between 2018 and 2020.
This is the first time in eight such games that they have kept a clean sheet though, and limited their opponents to just five shots throughout.
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