Oxford’s new boss Des Buckingham was delighted to get his first point since taking charge in a 0-0 draw with League One leaders Bolton at the Kassam Stadium.
The U’s bounced back well from their surprise 2-0 defeat at Cheltenham on Saturday and denied Bolton a ninth successive win.
“I think I’ll settle for that, on the balance of play,” Buckingham said afterwards.
“They’d scored seven goals at the weekend, they’re a very good team and they’ll be up amongst it at the end, with us, I’m sure.
“But we’d asked for a reaction after Saturday and I’m very pleased with what I’ve just seen this evening.
“We created a lot of chances, certainly in the first half, which we couldn’t capitalise on.
“But I thought we deserved at least a point.
“That point may turn out to be an important point at the end of the season, you have to take points off these sorts of teams.
“We created good goalscoring chances which we couldn’t take. But they will come. As long as we’re creating, that’s the most important thing.
“The goalkeepers on both sides earned their money tonight, but I thought our back four, in front of James Beadle, performed extremely well.
“Very pleased to come away with a clean sheet and very pleased to come away with my first point as the manager, and that it puts us in a solid position to move on.
“Elliott Moore is a very good leader off the field and it was good to have him back in the team, and you see the difference when he’s in the side.
“He’s a calming presence and he gives us different ways of playing out from the back.”
Oxford stay third in the table, just outside the automatic promotion places.
Bolton manager Ian Evatt was happy with his team’s showing, as they equalled a 123-year-old club record of seven consecutive clean sheets.
And they remain the League One leaders.
Evatt said: “We’ve stayed top, which is great, but it’s not about where we are now, it’s about the process and the performance.
“Tonight I think we’ve shown what a good team we are, especially in the second half.
“We dominated the second half and really should have won the game – but it happens.
“There are no negatives to take from tonight. We’ll park it now and move on to the next one.
“They had two chances but other than those we had possession, it was just working out where the space was.
“Their strategy was quite clever, but after we figured it out it seemed only a matter of time before we would get that goal.
“It shows the nature of football that on Saturday we scored seven, and tonight we probably created as many chances and opportunities and have not scored.
“But the performance was excellent.
“The clean sheets record is nice but it’s a team game. Nathan Baxter has made some good saves but also our back three were excellent.
“And we defend from the front and when you have control of the ball, it means the opposition can’t score.
“The dominance we had in the second half is what pleased me most. We just couldn’t finish it off with a goal.”
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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