• Wed. Feb 19th, 2025

Praise for goalscorer after ‘great strike’ helps earn U’s draw

Byoxfordnewspaper

Jan 16, 2025

GARY Rowett praised goalscorer Will Vaulks after his stunning strike from outside the penalty area helped Oxford United gain a point at Plymouth Argyle.

Vaulks opened the scoring on the stroke of half-time when he fired in a first-time effort from 25 yards, having been teed up by Mark Harris.

The Pilgrims would find a leveller via a Rami Al Hajj header less than 20 minutes into the second period, but the first goal for Vaulks in United colours helped extend the team’s unbeaten Sky Bet Championship start under Rowett to five games.

Read our match report here

The U’s head coach said: “It was a great strike. Vaulksy has been excellent for me. Playing in that double pivot just allows him to make better decisions rather than sometimes when you’re on your own, you’ve got a hell of a lot of space to cover, and that makes it really difficult.

“He’s been fantastic. I thought his long throws were a real weapon and they struggled to deal with that.

“He showed that good composure at the right times. It was a wonderful strike and a good move.

“A lovely ball from Jordan [Thorniley] over the top, and Sparky ends up receiving it, and a little bit of quality just to roll Vaulksy in, and it was a wonderful finish.”

Discussing the draw at Home Park generally, Rowett said: “We keep losing players and we keep having to change formation, and we have to keep changing the players within the formation, but everyone is digging in and working very hard to get results away from home.

“I thought we started really brightly. To go 1-0 up, I thought it was an excellent goal. We played over the top of their pressure, and their manager spoke a lot about how aggressive they wanted to be.

“We knew perhaps we had to bypass that a little bit at times, but it didn’t feel too uncomfortable. I thought they got into some good positions, but they didn’t really hurt us massively.

“The goal came about from the most innocuous position where we just let them get crosses into the box, and it was disappointing because a lot of the good work.

“We finished the game really strongly and had the two best chances at the end of the game. I think they had two shots on target, and when you come away from home with a new manager in place, you expect it to be far different to that in terms of stats.”