Bristol City head coach Liam Manning gave credit to coach Pat Mountain for playing a big part after Mark Sykes struck a superb equaliser from a clever free-kick in the 1-1 draw at Oxford.
It was Sykes’s first goal of the season and boosted City’s hopes of reaching the play-offs.
They had to play for an hour with 10 men after Joe Williams was sent off, and ended with nine as Ross McCrorie also saw red late on.
Manning said: “Credit to Pat, and the staff. He’d spotted something, they’d worked on it and it was really good composure from Sykesy, who executed it superbly. It was a moment of real high quality.”
Manning was impressed with his team’s all-round defensive qualities.
“Even when you’re 11 men you want to see those behaviours,” he said.
“I’m not questioning the lads in terms of their resilience, their willingness to run, to fight and compete – the second half epitomised everything you want culturally.
“The lads defended well – that’s how we work, to give the players clarity, what to do if we’re pressing, knowing what’s your role, what’s your job.
“Their understanding of what we wanted them to do and their execution of it in the second half was very good.
“I’ve seen the red card decision back. It’s a tough one – a few years ago it’s not getting given. It’s minimal contact but he is off the ground so he gives the referee the opportunity to make that decision.
“But to me that epitomised the referee’s performance. I thought he was extremely poor. He was inconsistent for both sides.”
Oxford head coach Gary Rowett was disappointed his team failed to win.
The U’s took the lead through Greg Leigh on 59 minutes but were unable to make it count towards a win.
Rowett said: “It was frustrating in some ways.
“They’re a good team and we know how they set up, and in some ways they’re just as comfortable in those situations with 10 men, in those deep defensive positions because they’ve got three big centre halves who I thought were very, very good today.
“At the start of the game we didn’t play with enough composure but we still got into some very good positions.
“Then as soon as they got the red card it kinds of plays into their hands in some ways, in terms of blocking the game up and making it really hard for us to find the space.
“When we played wide quickly we got into good areas, but we were a little bit wasteful with our possession and a little too rushed.
“When you go 1-0 up you expect to control the game.
“We gave one silly free-kick away which gives them one chance and you only need one chance to score.
“The free-kick saw a great dummy to leave the space and Mark Sykes finished it off really, really well.
“Before the game I wouldn’t have been happy with a point because we’d won four games out of four at home. We want to win every home game.
“But the way the game went, as soon as they got it back to 1-1, I thought it would be hard to break them down. We needed something to drop for us.”
