Oxford United's new manager Dave Kemp will be hoping an injection of new blood can inspire his struggling team after seeing them crash to their 14th defeat in 17 games, writes Jon Murray.

The 1-0 defeat by Bristol Rovers at the Manor Ground on Saturday had many fans thinking "new management team, same old story" as the U's failed to create one good goalscoring chance against mid-table opponents.

The match brought home to Kemp and his assistant Alan McLeary what a mammoth task they have on their hands to keep United up. With their awful goal difference, United are now effectively 12 points adrift of safety - and that's a huge amount to catch up.

Director of football Joe Kinnear is hoping to fix up for some triallists to arrive at the Manor this week, some possibly from Scandinavia, and Kemp admitted: "We're in a difficult position and we need help, but it's not easy at this time of year getting in new players."

Kemp said he could not fault the players for their effort, but there was an obvious lack of quality and composure.

"I was pleased with the effort the lads put in, it was very good, but you could obviously see a lack of confidence when we had the ball, as there would be from any team in our position.

"Some of the players surprised me, some didn't do as well as I had hoped. It's back to work on Monday to try and improve them."

But he wasn't totally surprised by what happened in his first match in charge.

"We know there's problems,the recordtells you that," he said. "I'd obviously like to have a bit more quality on the ball and more composure, but if we had those things we'd be at top of the league, not at the bottom."

Kemp didn't have the best of luck as midfielder Peter Fear, who again showed good ability, injured his groin and was unable to return for the second half.

And the gamble in bringing back Paul Powell after his two-month injury lay-off didn't pay off, Powell clearly struggling with a lack of match fitness against Bristol Rovers' pacy Marcus Bignot.

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