Oxford United boss Aaron Ramsey praises

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0 Comments This article is brought to you by our exclusive subscriber partnership with our sister title USA Today, and has been written by our American colleagues. It does not necessarily reflect the view of The Herald. Aaron Ramsey praised winning goal scorer Kai Andrews and defended goalkeeper Jamie Cumming after Oxford United's win over Wigan Athletic.

The U's were 2-1 victors against Gary Caldwell's Latics, Michal Helik opening the scoring just before half time.

The visitors equalised out of the blue in the second period through a wonder strike from Christian Saydee but saw red moments later when Fraser Murray went in late on Oxford defender Jack Currie.

Four minutes later, Andrews scored the winner and his first for the club on loan from Premier League side Coventry City to help his team reach six games unbeaten.

After arguably Andrews' best performance in a yellow shirt to date, Ramsey sang his praises: "He had a fantastic game tonight. He was everywhere. He was calm in there.

"He was in the position when we played him, able to build the attack, create the attack, get into the box, get on the end of things.

Brodie Spencer drives forward for the U's (Image: Darrell Fisher)

"He's got that ability and it's really pleasing for him that he's got his goal tonight to cap off a fine performance.

"Up until their goal, I thought we were in complete control of the game, to be honest with you. But really pleasing that we got the win.

"I thought the way we responded as well to go and get the win against 10 men, which is difficult sometimes when they sat in a low block and you have to keep manipulating them and trying to get them to sort of bite into areas where they don't want to go.

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"And that was pleasing that we showed character to go and win the game."

Despite some good play out from the back across the 90 minutes, U's goalkeeper Cumming came in for some flack for an error in the second half, giving the ball away to a Wigan forward from his own box.

There were also questions over whether the former Chelsea man could have done better for Saydee's long range strike.

When asked whether he thought Cumming could have done more to prevent the equaliser, Ramsey replied: "Look, from my angle, I don't know.

Tyler Goodrham readies to cross the ball (Image: Darrell Fisher)

"We'll definitely look at all the areas that we can try and improve on and things like that going forward now into the next home game. But on the whole, I thought Jamie played really well.

"He was aware of the press and played over the press to Brodie a lot of the time and was fairly comfortable."

The win at the Kassam Stadium saw Oxford rise one place to seventh in League One whilst their opponents remain bottom of the division.