DANNY Rose believes Oxford United will only have made a good start to the season if they beat Notts County tonight.

The U’s have had some highs in the opening week of the campaign, coming from 2-0 down to draw with Luton Town on Saturday and hammering Brentford 4-0 in the Capital One Cup.

But Michael Appleton’s men are still waiting for their first league win of the season and even at this stage Rose does not want to be too far off the pace.

It means the midfielder thinks United need to win tonight to keep the momentum going.

“We definitely do,” he said.

“We want to be fighting at the right end of the table and we want to be there as soon as possible, we don’t want to be playing catch-up after three games.

“It was all good equalising late at Luton, but we need to consolidate that point with a win on Tuesday night.

“We’re eager to get back out there again and get three points to get up the table.

“We’re 16th, which doesn’t look too great.”

A key issue for Rose tonight is making sure United get the first goal.

In both their league games so far, against Crawley Town in their only home game to date and Luton, the side have had to fight their way back after falling behind.

He said: “You’re always then chasing the game and teams will always sit back against us and make it difficult, like Crawley did.

“But we showed in the Brentford game when we do go ahead it’s not a case of sitting on the 1-0 lead, we want to get two and three.”

Liam Sercombe began the fast start at Brentford with an early goal.

The midfielder will be aiming to help United come flying out of the blocks again, but knows if there is no quick breakthrough United must use the ball intelligently.

He said: “We have to do what we did against Brentford and get at them straight away.

“We know teams will come to our place and sit back with one up top.

“We’ve got to learn how to break them down and be patient – there are times to try and play through them or go long.

“We’ve got to get that right and once we do and get the first goal we’ll be fine.”