WINNING was all that mattered to Oxford United so Liam Sercombe was delighted to play a key role, even if he was unsatisfied with his overall performance.

After seeing their advantage over fourth place eroded to just goal difference heading into Saturday’s home game with Hartlepool United, Michael Appleton’s side knew they could not afford to drop points.

They duly delivered with a 2-0 victory to stay third with just 180 minutes of the season remaining.

Sercombe was not at his best, but was still instrumental.

It was the midfielder, who turns 26 today, whose shot hit the crossbar and was turned in by Kemar Roofe to open the scoring.

Late on he cleared off the line to deny Hartlepool what would have been a damaging equaliser, before making the game safe in stoppage time with his 16th goal of the campaign.

He said: “After the last two games we had we needed a good performance, but the more important thing was the result.

“We needed the three points and we got that from a professional performance.

“I didn’t feel like I had the best of games, but we had to stick in there.

“We’re a team and you’re not going to have the best of games every week.

“To get a goal at the end was a nice little bonus for me, but more importantly were the three points we desperately needed.”

Sercombe was particularly pleased to score, or he would have had to answer to James Roberts, who was screaming for a pass to give himself a tap-in.

He said: “Robbo was in the box and he came up to me afterwards – I said ‘I didn’t even see you’.

“It was nice to finish it off and we go into the last couple of games with it in our hands.”