admin“We Dominated the Stats’ – Gary Rowett’s Remark After Oxford United’s First Ever Loss to Preston Leaves Fans Divided
The U’s head coach lamented fine margins in the early kick-off
Oxford United manager Gary Rowett was frustrated to finish a ‘winnable’ game empty-handed as they lost 2-1 to Preston North End on Saturday.
Goals from Jordan Storey and Daniel Jebbison secured a win for the Lilywhites, whose unbeaten run extended to five games. Rowett, who headed into the game having never lost any of his 15 matches managed against PNE, spoke to the media post-match.
“I think [it was] a good Preston side,” said Rowett, “But, I think a very winnable game for us. That’s the frustration. We’ve played against a lot of these teams that are in and around the top. I think they’re in and around the top because they do things consistently in games. The challenge for us is that we keep doing the wrong things in games.”
Rowett was quick to look in the mirror with regards to taking responsibility for the result, but rued the lack of converted chances in contrats to North End’s clinical edge.
“If I look at the game and the starting formation, looking back on it, I’ve probably got that wrong,” said Rowett. “I’ll take responsibility on that and be the first to hold my hands up, but we didn’t do enough in the first half within that system.”
He added: “When you concede poor goals, it just makes it so difficult. Teams don’t need a helping hand. They get a free header at the back post [for Storey’s goal], the second one is just a little bit of movement in the box and we’ve got so many players around that – we just needed to deal with it.
“We go on and dominate possession and we dominated the stats. We end up having about 24 shots, eight on target and they’ve had two on target and scored two goals, so that’s been the difference in the game.”
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