TOM Newey was staggered by the way Oxford United’s resilience deserted them at Cambridge United, a week after they had dug in so impressively to beat Newport County, writes DAVID PRITCHARD.

The U’s earned praise for the way they defended with ten men to claim a 1-0 win against the Welsh side.

But those qualities vanished at the Abbey Stadium, where they were humbled 5-1.

Newey struggled to explain the Jekyll and Hyde displays.

Latest Sport news

He said: “I suppose that’s why football is such a strange game.

“If you saw the second half last week you’d never have envisaged that happening.

“There’s no point beating around the bush, it was not good enough and that’s the truth of it.”

He added: “Especially in the second half the performance was inexcusable.

“In the first half we took the lead and did OK in periods. They scored two goals at crucial times.

“In the second half we came out looking to get the first goal, but we folded and that’s unacceptable.”

The left back provided the cross from which Danny Hylton opened the scoring, but was unable to stop Cambridge at the other end.

And Newey admitted many problems were self-inflicted.

“I think all of the goals are individual mistakes, myself included for one or two maybe,” he said.

“Sometimes if they get a couple of quick goals it seems to unravel.

“Having said that there’s enough experienced bodies, including myself, Raynesy (Michael Raynes), Mulls (Johnny Mullins), people like that who should really be doing better than that.”

  • 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.