MICHAEL Appleton was thrilled at the character Oxford United displayed to grind out a 1-0 win after playing with ten men for most of the second half against Newport County.

The head coach was less impressed with the officials, though, and predicted they would feel “embarrassed” when they reviewed the decision to send off Tyrone Barnett.

But while it was not what United would have wanted, going a man down forced the home side to bind together and scrap their way to victory.

It was that aspect of game, rather than the attractive football in the first half which saw Michael Collins score the only goal, which left Appleton most satisfied.

Latest United news:

“Without a shadow of a doubt,” he said.

“The first-half performance I know we’re capable of doing every week.

“I’ve seen it most weeks, but the second half if you were to write that scenario before the game then you’d think ‘let’s see what we’re about’.

“I think they’ve shown really great character.

“I think it is (a big hurdle to overcome) and I think you can tell in the dressing-room.

“There was a belief they weren’t going to score.”

Watch match highlights here

United were largely in control until the 55th minute, when Barnett collected his second booking.

The striker ran across Darren Jones as he cleared, but the defender ended up on the floor.

Despite choosing his words very carefully after the game, the U’s boss could not hide his frustration.

He said: “I’ve been in the game a long time and I’ve actually never seen anything like that.

“(Barnett) actually just ran across the player, he hasn’t touched him the slightest little bit.

“I don’t know what the officials think they saw.

“Between them I suppose they’ll be a bit embarrassed, but I don’t think their defender helped, obviously he conned them a little bit.

“Luckily we held on.”

Appleton’s opposite number Justin Edinburgh, who was marking three years in charge at County, bemoaned the nature of Collins’s winner, a free-kick which missed everyone in the area and drifted into the net.

He said: “To lose to the fluky goal like we did, we’re disappointed and obviously it puts a dampener on it (the anniversary).

“It’s always easy to say you can go and beat ten men, but nine times out of ten that doesn’t happen, certainly when a team’s holding onto a lead.”

  • Do you want alerts delivered straight to your phone via our WhatsApp service? Text NEWS or SPORT or NEWS AND SPORT, depending on which services you want, and your full name to 07767 417704. Save our number into your phone’s contacts as Oxford Mail WhatsApp and ensure you have WhatsApp installed.