Oxford United v Sheffield Wednesday: Darren Moore blasts Owls defending after lapses cost dearly

Goals from Barry Bannan and Lee Gregory were rendered moot as the home side were handed three soft goals, leaving Moore visibly frustrated when speaking to the media afterwards.

Asked what he felt of the side’s powderpuff defending for a result that puts the gap to the playoff places back to six points, the Owls boss spoke honestly, lambasting a basic level of concentration in their defending.

“I think ‘chucked away’ are the right words,” he said. “We came to take the game to them and the boys started excellently today.

“Looking back at the game and analysing it, we scored two excellent goals, well-worked goals.

“What I’m most bitterly disappointed with is that the three goals were so unavoidable. You look back at those goals and the concentration levels just weren’t there.

“Why that is I’m not sure. They’re three avoidable goals and poor goals for us to concede.

“We can’t come here and give teams those goals. I don’t think they [Oxford] have had to work for it. We’ve worked hard for ours and scored two fabulous goals. But we’ve more or less given them their three and lost the game today.”

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Moore built a successful playing career on solid defending and asked why he can’t seem to get his team to follow his example, he said: “You can try to replicate it in training, but it’s different. You can put 50 or 100 balls in the box and they’ll head them away.

“There’s a different elevation on the ball, the crowd, there are moments. There are loads of thing you look back on that you can do, but you can’t replicate it.

“It’s that moment, you set yourself and get yourself in the position to defend. In the crucial times we didn’t do it.

“The work will go in again. I looked at the energy today and the goals we scored were excellent. I’m so disappointed they didn’t lead to three points and a good away day performance.

“It’s left it bitter because they’ve scored in the last five minutes in a game we’ve relatively dominated today. That’s the disappointing thing.”