Darrell Clarke praised his rapidly-improving Cheltenham side’s mentality as they upset high-flying Oxford with a 2-0 League One home success.
Goals from Rob Street and Will Goodwin were enough to spoil Des Buckingham’s first match in charge of the promotion-chasing U’s, with both sides reduced to 10 men at the Completely-Suzuki Stadium.
“I’m proud of everyone today, even more so when we were down to 10 men for a period of time,” Clarke said.
“I thought we started very, very well and managed the game well. We created opportunities and yes, they’ve had one or two, but you’d expect that with them flying in the league.
“We’d certainly have been everyone’s away banker today and we are glad to prove the form wrong. I am proud of my players.”
Cheltenham started strongly and broke through in the 34th minute when Liam Sercombe’s corner was cleared to Street, who smashed a sweetly-struck effort through a crowd of bodies from 20 yards.
Goalscorer Street then saw red for catching Stephan Negru with an elbow in first-half stoppage-time.
On the dismissal, Clarke said: “I am asking our players to be aggressive, but we don’t want to go over the line.
“Streety has struck a great goal and I am not going to kill the lad’s confidence.
“We’ll look at it, but I am not here to criticise my players. I am asking them to be aggressive, fair but aggressive.
“Sometimes we might step over the mark and we have to be mindful of that. I don’t want to be critical of him because he was having a fantastic game up until then.”
Oxford forward Ruben Rodrigues was given his marching orders for dissent after a foul on Ben Williams after 68 minutes.
Cheltenham made sure of the points when George Lloyd set up Goodwin for his third of the season with 14 minutes remaining.
Buckingham, who replaced Liam Manning as Oxford head coach a week ago, said: “It’s a disappointing result, of course.
“They started better than we did in the first half and as the game went on, we grew into it and found ourselves again.
“I actually thought they scored against the run of play, while we were on top.
“They were a very direct side and a very physical side and I thought we stood up and matched that for most of the game.
“We made some changes at half-time and we started the second half extremely well and had several chances.
“A switch off and a long ball costs you a second and then a sending off kills the momentum.”
Man United could be without Toone until new year, says Skinner
Marc Skinner revealed that Manchester United could be without midfielder Ella Toone until the new year after she picked up a calf injury in training.
Toone has featured in five games in the Women's Super League this season, but is yet to register a goal or an assist so far this term.
The 25-year-old has missed United's last two games and was not selected in Sarina Wiegman's England squad for their upcoming friendlies against the United States and Switzerland.
She had previously appeared in a staggering 96 straight matches before missing United's WSL showdown with Leicester City last weekend.
But ahead of the Red Devils' meeting with league leaders Chelsea on Sunday, Skinner confirmed they would be without Toone for not only that game, but for the foreseeable future.
"We have three games [after the international break and before Christmas]. There's always the hope, but I think you balance and you go, 'right, if we can get her back, we get her back'," Skinner said.
"But we're just not going to rush her in this moment because it's a calf injury, it's your running mechanism. If we injure the running mechanism, it takes longer.
"So ideally we'd like her back for those games afterwards.
"The projection is she misses this game [Chelsea], she misses the international window, probably misses the first game after that, and then we'll see from there.
"But because it is such a short block of only three games, we'll assess whether it's worth that or actually resetting to come back after Christmas."
Al-Nassr 1-2 Al-Qadsiah: Aubameyang winner ends hosts' unbeaten run
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang hit the winner as Al-Qadsiah inflicted a 2-1 defeat on Al-Nassr in the Saudi Pro League on Friday to end their 21-match unbeaten run.
Cristiano Ronaldo's seventh league goal of the season put Al-Nassr ahead, but Al-Qadsiah replied swiftly through Julian Quinones before Aubameyang struck the decisive blow.
The hosts drew first blood in the 32nd minute when Ronaldo slotted home after Al-Qadsiah goalkeeper Koen Casteels had spilled a routine catch from Talisca's cross.
However, Al-Nassr's joy was short-lived when Quinones brought down Turki Al Ammar's delivery five minutes later, with the Mexcio winger firing past Bento to level the scores.
Quinones also played a part in the winning goal after brilliantly turning the ball back across goal from Nahitan Nandez's search pass to tee up a simple finish for Aubameyang.
The result sees Al-Qadsiah move level on 22 points with third-placed Al-Nassr, with Al-Shabab also level with them.
Stefano Pioli's Al-Nassr are six points adrift of defending champions and leaders Al-Hilal, who also have a game in hand.
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