Oxford boss Matt Bloomfield says his team need to create more clear-cut scoring chances but he was happy with the defending in the 0-0 draw against QPR.
It was a second successive goalless draw at home for the new head coach, who gave new signing Jamie McDonnell his first outing, the Nottingham Forest loanee coming on for the last 20 minutes.
Bloomfield said: “I think there’s been real positives in terms of the buy-in from the players, the energy and the effort, and the defensive structure has been very good both games, limiting the opposition to very little.
“And we’ve created some big moments. Unfortunately for us, we’ve not been able to take them. We’ve created enough to win both games.
“We want to create more clear-cut opportunities, that has to be said, but at the same time the boys are committing everything, the crowd were great again tonight.
“There are things we need to work on, but we knew where we were coming into the building.
“We wanted to win both games and we’ve created enough to do so, but we’ve been unable to take them.
“I thought Jamie McDonnell was very good when he came on. He’s a quiet, unassuming lad but on the pitch he’s a real warrior, he wants to win in everything he does.
“Sam Long was excellent when he moved across to centre-half as well.”
Oxford have a run of difficult Championship matches ahead but Bloomfield said: “We know we’ve got some tough games coming up but both Bristol City and QPR were top-half teams.
“Of course we wanted to get off to a good start and win as soon as we possibly can and it’s not happened, but we believe in the work we’re doing.”
QPR had full-back Esquerdinha stretchered off with a bad knee injury but boss Julien Stephan is hoping X-rays will show the damage is not as bad as many first feared.
“The news on Esquerdinha seems to be not too bad, ” said Stephan. “I hope we’ll have good news after a scan and assessment.
“He had a bad rotation on his knee but he’s coming back with us and we’ll know more in a couple of days.
“It was a game in very difficult conditions, a lot of wind and rain. I think in the first half we did quite well, we had more control, and they shot only two or three times from outside the penalty area.
“We had some good moves on our left side. The lack of quality after that to be able to create big danger was disappointing. It was more difficult for us at the beginning of the second half but they had only one situation and it was a good save from Joe Walsh.
“(Other than) that we didn’t concede a lot and at the end and in stoppage time we had two good opportunities.
“For us it’s a second clean sheet in three days away from home, and the third clean sheet in four games so in terms of consistency we are good, and we see the positives of taking a point here.”
