Franny: We'll get over sticky patch (From The Oxford Times)

Franny: We'll get over sticky patch

7:48pm Sunday 14th March 2010 in

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GOALSCORER Franny Green said the Oxford United players’ battling qualities were much better against Kettering on Saturday than they had been against Hayes & Yeading.

The striker grabbed his first league goal for the U’s – though he had scored with a spectacular volley at Chelmsford in the FA Trophy – with an excellent finish.

But Chris Wilder’s men had to settle for a 1-1 draw after the Poppies, a physically strong outfit who boast the best away record in the country, levelled soon after.

“We battled well to match their commitment, and that’s what’s going to get us through because we need to battle, commitment and honesty,” Green said.

“The fans are used to us winning every game, but every team goes through bad patches.

“We’ve got to keep winning or drawing our games.

“The battling was much better than Tuesday, so we’ve got to keep showing that commitment and attitude, and if we do, we’ll have no problems whatsoever.”

Green admitted getting a lot of pleasure from his goal, though would have preferred a victory.

“I’ve been out of the team for a while now, so to get back in and get a goal is great,” he said.

“I just took a gamble, Sammy (Deering) got a little touch on it, and I composed myself and it was a nice finish.

“But it’s not about personal things at this stage of the season, we’ve just got to try and get points on the board.

“Kettering are no mugs, they go away and battle, and have beaten a lot of teams.”

Centre back Jake Wright agreed that, while two home points dropped is disappointing, they had to be alert not to let Kettering chalk up what would have been a quite remarkable 15th away win in league and FA Cup this season.

“We obviously wanted to win but we had to be careful as well,” Wright said.

“A point’s better than no point. I thought we played with a good tempo, we still had to keep it tight because they were a threat all the time.”

Manager Chris Wilder admitted he tried what he could to effect a result.

“We tried to stick four up front, Sam in behind, we made early changes,” he said.

“When you make these changes at the start of the season, nobody says anything.

“When you do it again now, people say you’re making too many changes. We’ll always try to make changes to affect the team.”