We won't give up - that was the defiant message from player-coach David Oldfield after Oxford United slipped to another away defeat at Darlington on Saturday.

Defiant: David OldfieldThe U's have three games left, and are remarkably still in seventh place, hanging on by their fingernails to a play-off place.

The 2-0 setback was the fourth straight away defeat since Graham Rix took charge, leaving the temporary boss with just two points out of a possible 18.

Oldfield said: "There's no change in the goals we are conceding, they were poor goals.

"I feel really sorry for the fans who made the long journey up here.

"We created some decent chances in the second half, but we needed to score when we had that good spell.

"It was a better second-half performance than we've had for some weeks, but we've got to look hard at the goals we conceded.

"We will definitely not give up. We wonder what's going on, but we need to, and must, keep going."

They were two soft goals, with poor defensive play leaving Paul McCarthy isolated one-on-one for the first, and keeper Andy Woodman making a terrible blunder for the second.

If United could win their two remaining home games - against Cambridge this Saturday and against Rochdale on the final day of the season - that might be enough to take them into the play-offs.

But they are without a win in six games, their worst run since David Kemp was manager, and at the moment, it's hard to see where a goal, let alone a win, will come from.

Once again they were helped by rivals slipping up, with Northampton surprisingly held to a 2-2 home draw by Southend.

But Yeovil have now entered the equation. Their 2-1 victory over Bury, where they came from a goal down at half-time, leaves them just two points behind Oxford with a game in hand. The Cobblers are a point behind, also with one extra game to play.

And both of those games in hand are tomorrow. Northampton host third-placed Huddersfield while Yeovil travel to relegation-threatened York.

A further concern for the U's is that striker Steve Basham hobbled off before half-time at the Reynolds Arena with a hamstring injury, and Jon Ashton aggravated an Achilles problem during the warm-up.

Oldfield said: "Jon's Achilles flared up in the warm-up and we didn't want to risk it and possibly put him out for the rest of the season. But Matt Bound came in and rose to the occasion."

Rix abandoned the 4-5-1/4-4-2 formation and reverted to the 3-5-2 system which was successful under Ian Atkins.

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