Buckle hails Liverpool gamble

Paul Buckle admitted his big gamble of bringing in three Liverpool lads on loan to Cheltneham paid off after beating Oxford 2-1.

Jack Dunn and Kevin Stewart both scored in a victory over Oxford at the Kassam Stadium which was the Robins' first league win since October, and their first success under new boss Buckle. Centre-back Lloyd Jones, midfielder Stewart and striker Dunn, who were only signed 48 hours before kick-off, all impressed as Cheltenham overcame a shaky start to claim a vital win. Buckle said: "What I've done in bringing the lads in has paid off. "You always fancy someone like Jack to score, he's got quality. The strikers' work-rate was phenomenal. "All three did very well. It was positive by us to bring them in. "It was always going to take time to gel and I thought that showed in the first 30 minutes because we started poorly and Oxford had control of the game. "But we got to grips with them tactically and stopped them. "When Jack scored it was the first time in the game that we got the ball wide. I'd been screaming at us to do that. "That created the avenue for Jack and it was a stunning finish, a real finisher's finish. And it was a brilliant time to score. "Kevin's goal was really well worked from us. We'd worked a lot in training on short corners because we thought Oxford might be vulnerable there. I thought we looked dangerous at corners all game, and it was a good strike from him. "Trevor Carson made a great save in the second half but I thought then that Cheltenham were the better side. "With the work that the staff and players have put in, we deserve that result. We're looking fit and looking strong, but we've still got loads to work on. "We've been getting there. I think this win has been coming, and I'm glad with the style we did it in. "Hopefully we can kick on now. We'll take an awful lot of belief." Oxford were bossing the game after half an hour, and led through Wes Burns' 19th-minute header from Danny Hylton's cross. But 19-year-old Dunn equalised almost out of nothing on 40 minutes, and Stewart, 21, curled in a 20-yard shot following a corner, that caught out keeper Ryan Clarke, who was partly unsighted. Oxford's head coach Michael Appleton admitted: "It's a game that we let slip away. "I'm bitterly disappointed to lose that with the amount of possession we had in the first 30 minutes. "It was a little bit surreal to be coming in at half time 2-1 down, to be honest, but in terms of defending, we've got to be better than that. Just little things can change a game so quickly. "Before that we had them on the rack and we should have finished them off. We were outstanding for half an hour. "In the second half it was almost that our players were trying too hard, we maybe lacked a bit of composure in and around the box. "We were a bit too 100 miles an hour in the second half." It was a second successive home defeat for the U's, and leaves them in 16th place, on the same number of points now as Cheltenham.