Karl Robinson says the worst run of his career has left him in a tricky spot at Oxford.
A 3-0 loss at Bristol Rovers was their latest setback, Scott Sinclair (penalty), Aaron Collins and Luca Hoole all scoring for Gas – their first win in eight.
Oxford have one point from the same amount of games, and Robinson said: “It’s been a horrific run. It’s as bad as it gets.
“It’s one that at this moment drains all the positivity we had out of you.
“I don’t think in any game we have started negatively or on the back foot.
“We had chances in the opening minutes – one came with a deflection – and Kyle Joseph got across the back post but didn’t make good contact.
“Then the one time they get into our box, if it’s going to fall to anyone in a defensive situation the one you would want it to be to have a first touch would be Cameron Brannagan – and we have a penalty against us.
“In that moment you could see all the confidence and all the belief just drain.
“And that’s where you’ve got to find that little bit of calmness and belief to still believe in who we are as a team.
“The second goal comes as an exact replica of the one we missed with Kyle, and then it becomes an uphill battle.”
As Oxford continue to struggle, Robinson knows criticism will come.
“The criticism and the negativity is to be expected and is accepted,” he said.
“I have to accept responsibility for the result, and protect the players.
“I’ve got to be the shield for those players who are finding this moment difficult.
“I don’t think the fans turned on the players. If they turn on me that’s the best way of doing it
“I don’t think any player has shirked responsibility. No one’s not working hard but what you do see at this moment is a team that is really lacking confidence.
“I have to accept the consequences. The last three months have been as bad as I’ve had in my career and some of the performances certainly haven’t been good enough.
“It hurts. It hurts me, it hurts the players and I know it hurts the fans.”
For Bristol Rovers boss Joey Barton, the most important thing was getting back to winning ways.
“I wouldn’t want to single any one out, it was just a great team performance,” Barton said. “It was about getting back to the basics after such a bad showing last week. We worked hard on the basics in training this week.
“It was important to get back in that winners’ enclosure. It’s been a tough few weeks with injuries and losing games of football.
“We knew we had a young group and a young team and that we had to work through the adversity.
“Today we were excellent once we got that opening goal, on a difficult pitch and against decent opponents.
“We’ve got some decent quality in our building so it was just about going through the process of piecing a good team together.”
