JOHNNY Mullins urged Oxford United to lower their sights and just focus on tomorrow’s meeting with Cheltenham Town after suffering another setback.

The U’s crashed to a 2-1 defeat at home to Burton Albion, which saw them lose ground on the automatic promotion places in Sky Bet League Two.

Mickey Lewis’s men were on top in the second half, but paid for a woeful spell before the break when the visitors struck twice and had a penalty saved by goalkeeper Ryan Clarke.

Mullins thought the finish gave United something to build on, but stressed they cannot afford to look beyond tomorrow’s game after three defeats in their last four outings.

He said: “The second half was better and we just have to try and draw the positives from that and go again on Tuesday.

“We need to beat Cheltenham, we need to win a football match.

“There’s no point talking about where we want to finish in the league, or results going for us, or this, that and the other.

“We’ve got to win a football match and that in itself will bring a good feeling back about us again – and we can go again.

“It doesn’t matter how we win it, we just want to go and beat Cheltenham.”

United have possessed the best defensive record in the division for most of the season, but they have leaked nine goals in the last four games.

Mullins was at a loss to explain what had gone wrong to allow Burton to run riot.

He said: “I’m not sure, I thought we started the game particularly well.

“We were on the front foot, then we gave them a goal, then we gave them another and all of a sudden it’s a hell of a mountain to climb.

“Clarkey got us out of another hole and I thought we just gave ourselves too much to do.

“We are not going to pick ourselves apart too much.

“Teams are going to score goals against you and as disappointed as we are at the minute we have just got to stay together.

“We have to be positive. It’s easier said than done but we want to win football matches.

“It’s simple as that, we want to go out on Tuesday, be solid and get the goals we need.”