WILL Vaulks said he felt the ‘most angry and frustrated’ during Gary Rowett’s tenure as Oxford United head coach following the side’s 2-0 defeat at home to Portsmouth.
United were for large periods of the game unable to create opportunities nor indeed find any rhythm in the final third.
Pompey made the U’s pay with goals at either end of the second half from Andre Dozzell and Mark O’Mahony, securing a victory which lifted them to within two points of United.
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U’s midfielder Vaulks said: “We just lacked quality really. It was a really frustrating afternoon for us. We created some good opportunities, but a little bit too little too late.
“I think in the first half, they were there to be beaten. In the Championship, as we all know, if you give teams an opportunity to stay in the game, sometimes you can get punished and we conceded a sloppy goal in the end.
“It’s definitely not through a lack of effort. The running, the effort and the tackling was there. It was the lack of quality which was really frustrating.
“It’s probably the most angry and frustrated I’ve felt personally, and probably the team and the manager since the manager came in.
“We knew it was a big game. We focus on performance. We can’t go and throw everything out and be really hard on ourselves and the progress we’ve made, but we’re definitely frustrated in there.
“Individually, we needed to lift it five to 10 per cent in quality because we got into some good areas and then it just fizzled out.
“As individuals, sometimes we’ve got to take the game by the scruff of the neck and that’s up to each individual to do that. I just think we lacked that little bit of quality.
“We know we weren’t at our best, but we still created two or three fantastic moments, with two headers in the six-yard box.
“The lads aren’t trying to miss, they’re trying to score, and unfortunately they’ve both got too good a contact on them, and they probably just needed to scuff them in.
“That’s football for you, and why you’re better off looking at the games as a whole as opposed to individual moments.
“It wasn’t a question of not creating, it was that quality at the end. The slightly misplaced pass or the finish.
“I’ve missed them before. It happens, it’s football, but they’re the swings in games that either go and lose you games or win you games.”