Oxford United boss Chris Wilder let his players know in no uncertain terms that he will not allow them to take their foot off the pedal.

Even though they won 4-0 against Eastbourne Borough at the Kassam Stadium on Saturday, setting a new club record of six successive clean sheets and moving eight points clear at the top of the table, Wilder was furious that his side became sloppy in the second half.

And he insists his decision to order the players straight off at the final whistle and not let them receive applause from the fans was not publi-city-seeking, but simply to make them aware that they cannot afford to let their standards slip.

United’s manager said he was “not bothered” that it was a 4-0 win or a club record.

“It’s 11 games of the season gone, and the second half wasn’t good enough,” he blasted.

“It’s my team, I run the players – the fans support it – it’s got my mark on it and I didn’t like the things that happened second half.

“We never passed the ball with any crispness, we never tackled, never won headers, never worked hard. It wasn’t good enough for me.

“I know when you’re 3-0 up it’s easy to take your foot off the gas, but from my point of view, if we’re going to achieve anything we’ve got to be a lot better.

“And on another day, maybe the opposition would have taken the chances that were made available to them.

“No disrespect to Eastbourne, but it wasn’t because they carved us open, it was down to us being so absolutely sloppy – so I’m not happy and I’ve had a blast at them.

“Maybe some of them were thinking that this league’s easy, the football’s easy, and on another day we could have been found out.

“We’ve got to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

He added: “I didn’t want to take anything away from the supporters, because I know they wanted to cheer, but I didn’t want the players to think they deserved a clap.

“That was why I rushed on at the end and got them off the pitch and in – because I wanted them to know exactly how we felt about it.

“We have simply got to keep our feet on the ground, and I thought for the first time it looked like we could leave it up to somebody instead of working as a team.

“I was raging. It’s not publicity or anything . . . that’s how we are, how we feel. Good win, we’re unbeaten and the league position’s good, but we’ve got to make sure we’re better than that.

“If we play like that at Mansfield on Tuesday we’ll get done.”