GARY Rowett rued the difficulties of life in Sky Bet Championship as his Oxford United side slipped to a 2-0 defeat at West Bromwich Albion.
Alex Mowatt netted against his former loan club after 11 minutes, and then Baggies substitute John Swift raced away to finish off a counter-attack from a U’s corner deep into second half stoppage time.
The defeat saw United fall to a third loss in four matches, and head coach Rowett was again left frustrated after seeing his team draw a blank in front of goal.
Rowett said: “I don’t think we gave the fans enough in the game to really warrant them being in good voice, but nevertheless you have to show the appreciation for them to try to help us. What we’ve got to do is help ourselves a little bit more.
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“We know what the Championship is like. Sometimes the away games at a place like this are a real challenge for a team like us.
“The second goal, you can almost forget that because we’re obviously throwing everybody forward, but at 1-0, they had control of the game too easily, and it was up to us to change that.
“I thought we spent too long trying to build play in a nice way, and it was a nice performance in some ways, where we needed a little bit of an edge about us.
“We needed to mix the game up a little bit. It’s quite difficult to do that sometimes when you haven’t got a target man up there or someone like Greg [Leigh] to hit.
“We’ve had to try and find a different way to do it, but it didn’t quite work as we hoped it would.
“That’s the game. We go away disappointed again from an away performance where we’re left frustrated and a little bit wanting in terms of the players that were out there.”
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Rowett added: “These games come down to the same things. Can you find the moments when the game opens up? Can you find the quality?
“We showed the players for the last five games moments we get into that should end up in a shot and moments we get into that should end up in an attack on goal or a promising opportunity, and they fizzle out because we make the wrong pass or the wrong decision, or we don’t quite knit the movement together, but that’s what it is.
“You’re in a division with teams like Middlesbrough that have lost five games on the spin. It’s not an easy decision, it takes prisoners very quickly, and from the highs of the early run of form to the disappointment of the last four or five games petering out a little bit. We’ve got to do something about it.”
