Appleton delight at Oxford win

Oxford manager Michael Appleton was delighted to see side end their long losing run as they saw off Northampton 3-1.

The U's had lost their last eight games at Sixfields but recovered from going behind early on to see off the Cobblers. Enda Stevens gave the home side the perfect start but two goals in as many minutes from top scorer Danny Hylton turned the game in Oxford's favour. Hylton's 10th goal of the campaign gave Oxford the interval lead and Alfie Potter added a third goal shortly after the restart. Appleton said: "I said to the players at half time that if we had come in 1-0 down I would have torn the dressing room apart, I would have been raging. "The biggest compliment I can give the players is the way they reacted so well to going behind and we could have had more goals. "Northampton nearly caught us on the counter attack because they've got some quick players but we've got players in the side who can score goals. "I feel we've been a bit unlucky a couple of times away from home this season but once we got the third goal we were able to see it out. The players backed themselves to defend resolutely and they did just that. "My only criticism is that we could have played our way out of situations a bit better than we did once we were 3-1 up. "The last two results have been good for us and sends out the right message that we will freshen things up if we need to and we did after the Cambridge performance. "We got the right response against Tranmere and we've followed that up. Now we need to cap this off by getting the right result at Carlisle." Cobblers boss Chris Wilder was left to reflect on his side's three-match losing run which has seen them drop down the table. Wilder said: "We made a good start and both teams looked dangerous in attack but we gave the ball away in a poor position and they broke on us. "They scored a soft goal and then Alfie Potter started doing what he can do. He gave Danny Alfei a hard time, won the penalty and when that goes in, the sway of the game changes completely. "I know all about Alfie [Potter] because I signed him for Oxford from Peterborough and he is capable of doing the sort of things he did in this game. "We've lost three games on the bounce so I'm not happy but I wasn't embarrassed by our performance. "I personally didn't think there was a lot in the game. Lawson (D'Ath) had a good chance to score right after half time and Ivan Toney's header should be a goal for us really. "That would have got us back into it and even in the last five minutes we had two good opportunities to score. "The team kept going right to the end and we're just lacking a bit of confidence but that happens when you haven't won for a few games."