By Jon Murray OXFORD United's caretaker manager Mickey Lewis was grateful for small mercies as his struggling second division side failed to beat bottom club Colchester despite Jamie Lambert scoring the fastest ever goal at the Manor last night.

"Yes, we should have won and we had a great start, but I'm pleased we haven't lost," said Lewis after the poor-quality 1-1 draw.

Lambert struck in just 17 seconds but Oxford gave away another bad goal at a corner as Colchester clawed their way back into the game.

Matt Murphy had the chance to give Lewis a 100 per cent winning start to his temporary managership when United were awarded a late penalty - but he missed it, his shot hitting the top of the bar and going over.

It was a slip which could cost Lewis the chance to get the job on a full-time basis, but he said: "It's one of those things, Matty's missed it, I'm not going to blame him for that. That's life.

"It wasn't a great game," Lewis conceded. "But there's no way I'm going to criticise the players, they gave it everything. "If anyone thinks that all of a sudden we're going to go from losing five games on the trot to world-beaters, it's not going to happen.

"We did say that we should go a bit more direct for the first 20 minutes. We got the goal from it, a good goal from Jamie Lambert, and after that, we probably had five or six attempts at goal.

"It was a rubbish goal we conceded from a corner. Where we are in the league, it's a relegation clash at the moment, so panic sets in.

"Bristol City is the only one we have won in the league since August so the heads went down a bit, and belief went out.We still kept battling and fighting but didn't play well in the second half."

Lewis said he could see how disappointed the players were that they hadn't won, but told them they must lift themselves again for Sunday's Division 2 derby at Reading. "I've told the lads to keep their heads up. It's not going to happen overnight. The confidence was that low after the Luton game, these things take time." We could have done with a goal off somebody's backside really, I know everyone says that and I dare say Colchester were thinking the same.

"But we haven't lost and honestly, however many people think we should beat Colchester at home, and we should do, at the end of the day if they'd beaten us, and gone above us, that would have been one hell of a bad result.

"It hurts them. In the dressing room afterwards the heads are down, you can see in their faces they are so disappointed but next time they come in for training, they've got to be upbeat, cheerful. It doesn't do any good to go around with your head down."

It was the second successive penalty miss for Murphy, who said: "I really don't know whether I'll be taking the next one. I expect we'll have a penalty competition to see." Lewis said: "I'm not sure if Matty will want to take the next one but he's the only one scoring any goals for us at the moment and he's got a great attitude."

The referee at last night's game, Paul Rejer from Tipton, confirmed he would be reporting Colchester manager Steve Whitton to the FA for comments made to him in the first half.

WITNEY Town's Carl Henry was set to play for United Reserves in the Avon Insurance Combination at Fulham today along with another unnamed triallist.

United Res: Lundin, R Weatherstone, McGowan, Shepheard, Ricketts, AN Other, Whitehead, Henry, Abbey, Cook, S Weatherstone.

Story date: Wednesday 03 November

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