Oxford head coach Liam Manning praised two-goal hero Billy Bodin following the 2-0 FA Cup win over National League Maidenhead at the Kassam Stadium.
Bodin scored in the 15th and 83rd minutes – but in between the Magpies gave it a real go and caused the League One promotion-chasers a lot of problems.
Manning said: “I just hope Billy stays fit because he’s been brilliant today.
“I think he’s in a really good place right now, because for the first couple of games this season he wasn’t in the team.
“But his personality in and around the dressing room has been great.
“I’m going to challenge him to score even more goals now. We know the quality he’s got and he needs to be getting double figures this season.
“So for all the terrific stuff he does, I’m going to keep pushing him to score more.”
Manning admitted the overall performance had been disappointing at times – but the U’s got the job done.
He said: “Cup football’s a bit different.
“We just spoke about it in the dressing room – there are two aspects to the game – it wasn’t the performance we wanted but we got the result.
“In a knockout competition like the FA Cup that’s the most important thing – you want to go through.
“There were large elements of the performance where we know we can be better and improve but there were two moments of real high quality to win the game.
“We have to be reasonable in our expectations – some people haven’t had games recently and that takes a little bit of time.
“We had moments of good play but we know what we’re capable of and we know we can get higher levels.
“But I don’t want to put too much of a dampener on it. What do you want to do, play perfectly and get knocked out or find a way to win? Ultimately that’s what we did today.”
Manning has been linked with the vacant Bristol City job, but he did not want to comment on that.
“I don’t want to detract from today, but I’ve heard nothing,” he said. “And I don’t want to get involved in anything hypothetical, I don’t see the point in it.”
Maidenhead boss Alan Devonshire, serving a touchline ban, said he was unable to speak to the media.
Assistant manager Ryan Peters said: “They’re second in League One so we always knew it would be tough, but I thought we did ourselves proud.
“There were moments in the second half when we had them on the ropes, and we had a few moments where it flashed across their goal.
“You just hope then you can nick one.
“But then they go down the other end and produce those moments of magic that have kept them as high as they are in the league.
“Ironically, scoring goals hasn’t been a problem for us lately, we’ve been scoring goals for fun. It’s been keeping them out at the other end that has been a problem.”
Peters said the occasion was special for the club.
“For quite a lot of these young boys in our team it’s the stage they want to be on, so it’s a big day out for them,” he added.
“It’s a bit of mixed emotions for me. We performed well. But I suppose when you run a team so close – and especially a team that is going so well in League One – yes, you’d like to see it over the line.”
Indonesia 0-4 Japan: Visitors stay unbeaten with rout
Japan continued their unbeaten start to World Cup qualifying with a 4-0 victory over Indonesia on Friday.
Two goals from the visitors in either half were enough to seal the three points and get them back to winning ways after a stalemate with Australia last time out.
Ragnar Oratmangoen should have put Indonesia ahead, but he hesitated one-on-one with the goalkeeper, and Japan did not look back after that. They got a bit of fortune with their first goal, Justin Hubner deflecting a cross into his own net in the 35th minute.
Takumi Minamino got their second just before the break, finishing off a pacy counter-attack by darting onto the end of Kaoru Mitoma’s cross to sweep it past Maarten Paes.
While there was not much the goalkeeper could do with that one, he was at fault for the third as he gifted the ball to Hidemasa Morita, who coolly picked out the bottom corner just after the break.
Yukinari Sugawara came off the bench to round off the scoring in the 69th minute. He raced down the right wing and instead of looking to his options, he rifled it in from a tight angle at the near post.
Japan are up to 13 points after five games, sitting top of Group C, while Indonesia are bottom, still in search of their first win.
Data Debrief: Clinically done
For a team still chasing their first win, Japan are probably not high on the list of opponents they would want to face, and Indonesia were undone by their visitors.
Hajime Moriyasu's side created 0.79 expected goals (xG) to Indonesia's 0.72, while they only had four more shots than their hosts (12 compared to eight).
Japan took their chances, and though the win margin may look harsh, they were deserving of the three points, having dominated throughout the game.
Jamaica 0-1 United States: Pepi give visitors advantage in Nations League quarter-final
Ricardo Pepi's first-half strike gave the United States a 1-0 advantage over Jamaica after the first leg of their Concacaf Nations League quarter-final.
The hosts saw a penalty saved in the first half before their frustrations were compounded late on thanks to Mason Holgate's red card.
The USA had the lead just five minutes in – having smothered a Jamaica attack at one end, the visitors caught them out with a pacy counter-attack, with Pepi sweeping it into the back of the net.
Shortly after, Shamar Nicholson was brought down by Matt Turner when he tried to take it around him, but the goalkeeper made amends, diving low to his right to deny Demarai Gray from 12 yards.
In the second half, Holgate was denied a tap-in by Yunus Musah before Turner scrambled to stop Leon Bailey's corner from nestling into the net as Jamaica searched for an equaliser.
With 86 minutes on the clock, Holgate received a second yellow card in just over 10 minutes for dragging Brandon Vazquez back, meaning he will miss the return leg in Missouri on Monday.
Data Debrief: Hitting the mark
Pepi got the all-important goal on Thursday, and is the fourth player to score 12 goals for the USA before turning 22 years old, joining Landon Donovan, Jozy Altidore and Christian Pulisic.
But it was perhaps Turner who actually had the most vital interventions; he has now saved three of the eight penalties he's faced for the USA, including two against Jamaica.
Mauricio Pochettino also could not have asked for a better result from his first competitive game in charge of the Stars and Stripes as he became just the third full-time manager to win his first competitive away match, joining Bob Bradley (2008) and Steve Sampson (1996).
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.
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