Oxford United boss Ian Atkins lamented his players' failure to make things happen as Torquay forced a 1-1 draw at The Kassam Stadium last night.

United's hopes of challenging for a play-off spot dipped as they allowed lowly Torquay to equalise from a set piece, just a minute after Paul Moody had converted a late penalty.

But over the 90 minutes, United looked second best, and well short of the quality needed to get them into the top seven of Division 3.

"Just as it was very good on Saturday, it wasn't very good tonight," Atkins conceded after the match.

"We didn't start as brightly as I wanted us to, then we got hold of the game a bit, but when we had the space to attack, we chose the wrong option, especially in the last third again.

"And the quality from wide areas left a lot to be desired again. You saw one or two players become deflated, but you can't afford that, because not every game is going to be perfect.

"Torquay made it very difficult with five at the back and three in midfield, and that's sometimes hard to break down. But we can still do a lot better on a lot of things and that's something we've got to keep working at.

"You're not going to win every game, it's not going to be all like Halifax, and Torquay made it very difficult because of the system that they play. Saying that, we should have worked harder in certain areas.

"But it was disappointing to go 1-0 up and just to throw it away, considering we do a fair bit of work on defending set pieces and we've got four or five big six-footers in the team. To allow someone to get a free header in was absolutely scandalous.

"We got our noses in front, but we couldn't hold it."

Many supporters were disappointed that Atkins changed to wingbacks after the 4-4-2 of previous home matches had brought so many goals.

"You can put out whatever system you want, but players win games," Atkins said. "Players have got to have the desire to want to go and take the game by the scruff of the neck, and we didn't do that.

Read more on This is united! (www.thisisunited.com)