Pompey 0 Oxford 1: Gaffer for a day

What did you make of that?

Oxford deserved to win on the balance of the game, they edged it.

I certainly didn’t walk away at the end of the game feeling robbed, the best team on the day won.

It was two really good footballing teams against each other – and a hell of a finish from Jordan Bowery settled it.

How do you think that result has affected Pompey’s promotion hopes?

I believe we will still get promoted, it hasn’t gone yet.

And I wouldn’t be surprised if Oxford went on to win the league now, they have serious momentum.

We have 20 games left and it is not uncommon for teams to have good or bad runs, it can happen. It can happen to us or teams above us, so let’s not give up.

I don’t know why people are worried, there’s a long way to go yet.

Oxford have been the best side I have seen in League Two this season.

What did you make of referee Neil Swarbrick?

He was pedantic and absolutely rubbish, totally the wrong referee for that sort of game.

In fact he was the worst referee I have seen for a long time, heading into Kevin Friend territory.

I know you cannot blame him for the defeat, we didn’t create a lot, but he was still awful and very stop-start.

If that is a Premier League referee it concerns me, we clearly have a serious problem in this country with the standard of our officials.

He missed everything in that opening 10 minutes.

Anyone impress you?

Ryan Fulton was my man of the match, while Matt Clarke also had a good game.

Obviously Fulton gave the penalty away but that double save was superb and overall he commanded his box well, came for everything and wasn’t rooted to his line.

Brian Murphy has kept 10 clean sheets, which is not a bad record so you can’t really criticise him, but at the same time there is an issue there.

Fulton played well on his debut and you can only comment on what you see.

Hopefully he’ll continue to play well.