DR HILL LAMENTS ‘ANXIOUS’ DALE
ROCHDALE boss Keith Hill diagnosed his side as suffering from “stress and anxiety” in front of goal in a dull draw with Oxford.
Dale came close through Steven Davies, Joe Bunney and Ian Henderson either side of half-time but were jittery in the box.
Hill was pleased to stymie a run of three defeats in four, although his side’s lack of composure in the final third caused concern.
He said: “The performance was okay, at times forgettable. We had one or two bright sparks and some good passages of play.
“Sometimes there is too much stress on them and they just need a little bit of confidence at the minute.
“We have to try to take away the stresses and the anxiety.
“We defended quite well and shut them out, we just didn’t get it firing the opposite way.”
Davies nearly opened the scoring from the game’s first corner, his goalbound header pawed away by Simon Eastwood.
Oxford’s first effort took 23 minutes to arrive, a backwards header from Josh Ruffels that was hooked off the line.
But Dale remained dominant, Eastwood twice denying Callum Camps – turning a fierce 25-yarder behind and minutes later, a low free-kick.
Rochdale, unbeaten in six games at the Crown Oil Arena, launched a succession of slick moves in the first half, earning eight corners for their efforts, and held all but the lead.
Four minutes after the interval, Henderson drifted a ball over to Bunney, who could only fire at Eastwood’s legs.
The visitors twitched into life, isolated lone striker Wes Thomas dropped deep to get the ball and crashed a deflected effort on target from the edge of the box.
Henderson poked wide of the near post, narrowly failing to cap another sweeping Dale move orchestrated by Done down the right.
On the hour, Camps’ looping header was nodded off the line by Mike Williamson, pedalling back to cover for Eastwood. The U’s survived a hearty penalty shout when Canice Carroll, deputising at left-back, looked to have hauled down Davies in the box.
Pep Clotet’s men suffered a further scare when Bunney’s driven cross slid mere inches in front of the onrushing Done six yards out.
Despite creating nothing, the U’s cut the gap to the play-off places to four points.
Clotet said: “I’m very pleased and I take the result as fair for both teams.
“We said a lot since the Blackburn game we have to be more solid and cut out mistakes.
“The team have done a fantastic job on that and we managed to cut off a lot of problems Rochdale posed.
“We had to be very focused or we would have lost the game.” ROCHDALE: (4-4-2): Lillis 7, Rafferty 6, McGahey 6, Daniels 7, Bunney 7, Done 6 (Inman 83 6), Camps 7, Rathbone 6, Henderson 7, Davies 6 (Williams 77 6), Andrew 6 Subs not used: Ntlhe, McNulty, Keane, Moore, Gillam OXFORD: (4-2-3-1): Eastwood 7, Tiendalli 6, Williamson 7, Mousinho 6, Carroll 6, Fernandez 5 (Ledson 83 6), Ruffels 6, Henry 5 (Van Kessel 77 5), Payne 5 (Rothwell 64 6), Mowatt 6, Thomas 5 Subs not used: Martin, Shearer, Obika, Napa