KARL Robinson was left frustrated after watching his Oxford United side start 2023 with a 1-0 defeat at home to Exeter City.

Sam Nombe scored the only goal of the game with just over 10 minutes to go, finishing off after the visitors led a three-on-one counter-attack from a United corner.

The manner of the goal annoyed Robinson, who felt Jake Caprice should’ve been fouled by one of his players as the wing back led the Grecians counter-attack.

Robinson said: “The players are honest people and will know where they’ve made mistakes, everything’s about making sure you learn from it and making sure you don’t keep making them.

“We haven’t made too many mistakes on the edge of the box this year but just one person switching off, and then we should’ve brought him down and taken the booking.

“We’ve seen our fans getting frustrated when they brought us down three or four times on the break.

“If we’d have done that, they wouldn’t have scored their goal.

“These are little things that I know the players are frustrated about.”

The U’s head coach added: “I thought the players’ attitude was excellent, but you can’t play like we did for large parts of that game and not score.

“Their goal comes from two players not doing their jobs and that’s the bit that’s frustrating.”

Despite dominating possession and having more shots than the away side, United were unable to find the net.

Robinson said: “This epitomises large parts of our season, I don’t think you’re going to get a more conclusive performance than what you did in the first half, except for not scoring goals.

“You can’t play at that level for 90 minutes, there’s going to be some sort of drop off.

“The second we dropped, they raised and were better than us, and they scored.

“That’s the bit I’m left very disappointed with and very angry with.

“We still feel we can achieve what we want to achieve this year but at the end of the day, we’ve got to be more aggressive in large parts of our play.

“We’ve got to take chances and get back to scoring goals, we’re so not like us in the final third and we’re not as aggressive as we have been in recent years, and that has to change.

“The other disappointing for me was I don’t think the subs had an impact on the game, I thought they were lethargic when they came on and that’s something we will look at.”

A highlight of the game though was the display of goalkeeper Ed McGinty, who made key saves to keep the U’s in the match.

Robinson said: “It was a solid performance from him and he looked a lot more competent.”