Mark Harris has Gary Rowett and Oxford ‘buzzing’ in win over Ipswich

Oxford head coach Gary Rowett was delighted for goalscorers Mark Harris and Przemyslaw Placheta after a 2-1 win over Ipswich.

The result lifted Rowett’s team out of the Championship’s bottom three and up to 19th in the table.

It was Harris’s first goal of the season and Rowett said: “If you’re a number nine and you’re not scoring goals, of course you’re going to come under fire and people are going to question why you are putting him in.

“But when you see him day in, day out, Sparky works so hard for the team, he’s a selfless player, he presses brilliantly.

“He’s looked confident in training and it’s great to see him score. The rest of the players will be buzzing for him because they know how much he brings to the side.

“Przemy’s got the pace to hurt any side, but with his goal it was a great pass from Brian (De Keersmaecker) and I thought his touch was good, and he finished it really well.

“We made a few changes, I felt we had to because it was a particularly tough week, to play Saturday, Tuesday, Friday. There were a few big calls – starting Sparky instead of Will (Lankshear) was one I toyed with all day.

“I was really disappointed with the goal we conceded, it was a good finish but too easy a goal to concede.

“And then there was a real decision to make – sit in and hang on for a point, or do we show a bit of quality and ambition, and character, and make changes to the way we were playing? For 10-15 minutes we stepped up really well.

“It’s been a big week for us – two good draws and then a win against a well-coached side with some very good players.”

Ipswich manager Kieran McKenna felt his team gave the game away after being in control at times.

Defeat ended the Tractor Boys’ strong run of three successive away wins and McKenna said: “We weren’t clinical enough in the phases of the game where we had control, and we’ve given away two poor goals that changed the momentum of the game and the energy in the stadium.

“It’s frustrating because it feels a bit like we’ve given the game away, on the back of a pretty good run. But there was still plenty of the performance that was fine – the players never gave up, even at 2-1 down.

“In the second half once we had got level, it felt the only way Oxford were going to score was going to be on the counter or from a long throw. It came on the counter when we were pushing to try to get the winning goal, and we didn’t deal with it well enough.

“Goals change games. Their first goal rocked us a bit, and it was the same for the second goal.

“It was frustrating that we didn’t score more from the chances we had in the second half. We’ve been very clinical in our last few away games. Tonight we weren’t, and it’s cost us.”