Chris Wilder revealed his delight at the way Oxford United demonstrated they’re a real team.

Saturday’s 5-0 win over Grays at the Kassam Stadium had passages of superb inter-linking play from the whole side.

And boss Wilder said the third goal, when James Constable declined the opportunity to complete his hat-trick and instead laid the ball off to a better-placed Jamie Cook to score, summed up the squad and staff’s philosophy.

“One of the things that really impressed me was in the first half when Beano got a whack, he was on a hat-trick and he rolled it across the face of goal – that’s fantastic from a manager’s point of view,” Wilder said.

“It’s the team ethic and it’s what we’re trying to get the players to do.

“I thought that just epitomised where we are at the moment . . . we’re a group.

“We’ve got a difficult game next week at York, and we’ve got to make sure we go up there as a group and get the right result to keep it going.”

Victory was United’s biggest winning margin for eight years – since the 6-1 thrashing of Halifax in December 2001 – moved them nine points clear at the top of the Blue Square Premier table, and they didn’t have a single player booked.

Although the blow Constable took meant he came off, his replacement, Jack Midson, scored twice, just as Constable had done.

Constable’s injury is not thought to be serious, just a bruise which could keep him out of training for a fewdays.

Wilder admitted: “It was a great day.

“Over 6,000 supporters were here witnessing a comprehensive victory, scoring goals, keeping a clean sheet . . . hopefully I’ll go home to find I got six numbers in the lottery to cap it off!

“Beano got a nasty whack to the top of his foot. Hopefully he’ll be able to train Thursday.

“We’ll be in on Monday and Tuesday, but it’ll be rest and recovery for him.”

He added: “Going forward we played some great stuff, made little holes and moved the ball really well.

“A couple of times it broke down, but we really wanted to try and pass, and play through the opposition, and I think we did that at times.”