Jordan Rossiter hails Harrison Holgate on stepping into breach for Fleetwood at tough time

Substitute Holgate was thrown into the fray after only 10 minutes, after Charlie Mulgrew was show a straight red card for a foul on Matty Taylor.

The 20-year-old slotted in well but couldn’t prevent Josh Ruffels heading the first-half winner.

It completed a busy week for Holgate, who had extended his Highbury contract to cover the next two seasons.

And the Yorkshiremen certainly caught the eye of Rossiter, who said: “Harrison was absolutely superb when he came on. Everyone is pushing Harrison every day.

“He works hard in training and when he came in he was calm, composed and did a job for the team.

“I think that was a superb performance in the circumstances.”

It was a 12th appearance of the season for Holgate, who was recalled to Fleetwood last month after playing two National League games on loan for Altrincham over Christmas.

And Rossiter felt the rest of Fleetwood’s 10-man team could holds their heads up after their efforts at the Kassam Stadium.

He added: “I think the boys were absolutely superb. We were unfortunate with the sending-off. Charlie has thought maybe he can nick it and these things happen in football.

“But there was only one team at the end battling to get a goal. It was a first-class performance.

“It’s tough going down to 10 men but I thought we had enough of the play in the second half and maybe we could have nicked it.”

The 23-year-old Liverpudlian has featured in all five League One games since Simon Wiles took over as interim boss and added: “For over 80 minutes they were a man up and away from home you can quite easily lose 2, 3 or 4-0 but I thought the lads stuck at it.

“We had a few half-chances and on another day we could maybe have got a few more shots away. It’s never great to be defeated but we have to go again next week.”

This was Oxford’s eighth successive win but head coach Karl Robinson sounded far from happy, feeling his side should have won more comfortably with the extra man.

Robinson said: “We have to be better – that’s been the case in the last two games we’ve played (his U’s won 4-3 at Rochdale last Tuesday). We fell over the line rather than cantered over the line.

“We were trying to get out of second gear but couldn’t. I think we need an injection of fresh personnel within the building.”

Of the performance against Town, he added: “People will say it’s a bit nervy but we missed some good chances and we should have put the game to bed. It’s one of those moments we’ll use as a learning curve.”

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