A satisfied Justin Merritt admitted his relief after seeing his Oxford City side end their five-match winless run in Vanarama Conference North with a 2-1 win over Brackley Town, writes Matthew Bruce.

City were rarely troubled by their struggling opponents and general manager Merritt felt they were deserved victors.

“You’re never going to totally dominate the game, but I thought we were by far the better team,” he said.

“We missed several gilt-edged chances and gifted them a goal, but other than that I don’t think we were threatened.”

  • Latest Sport news

 After falling behind to a Shaun Jeffers goal City hit back thanks to a brace from Adi Yussuf.

And Merritt felt his side showed great spirit to recover from that setback following a string of disappointing results.

He added: “Every time we’ve gone behind it’s been a bit of a monkey on our back that we haven’t been able to recover from it.

“These things happen and what you have to do mentally is let that go and move forward again.

“We’ve been dwelling on it like it’s the end of the world when we’ve conceded and actually to see us go from being behind to come strong, I’m delighted.”

  • Do you want alerts delivered straight to your phone via our WhatsApp service? Text NEWS or SPORT or NEWS AND SPORT, depending on which services you want, and your full name to 07767 417704. Save our number into your phone’s contacts as Oxford Mail WhatsApp and ensure you have WhatsApp installed.