James Constable edged closer to a century of Oxford United goals with a stunning strike at Torquay United which the striker rates as his best.

The 28-year-old chased a kick from Ryan Clarke and smashed a spectacular dipping 20-yard volley into the net just four minutes after coming on as a substitute.

It doubled the visitors’ lead at Plainmoor and set them on the way to a 3-1 win which preserved United’s place at the top of the Sky Bet League Two table.

Constable now has 95 goals for the club, just 12 short of Graham Atkinson’s record and he believes his latest strike is the best of the lot.

He said: “I can’t remember a cleaner strike than that. “There are a lot of times when the ball sits up like that and you think ‘should I have a shot or not?’, but I don’t think I’ve hit a better one than that.”

It all came after a pre-match prediction from Andy Whing.

“Whingy was saying beforehand ‘you’ll get a goal here today’,” Constable said.

“Pretty soon after I came on there was a long ball from Clarkey, Deano (Smalley) challenged it and it sat up perfectly to be hit.

“The second it dropped over my head I knew Deano was out of the game and there was no-one else in close proximity, so it made my mind up.

“I just needed to make sure I got the cleanest connection I could. I didn’t want to see it go out for a throw.”

It all came after a first half in which Torquay, with the wind at their backs, made the visitors defend doggedly.

Constable said: “It could have been one of those days where we could have easily not picked up three points.

“It goes to show we are going in the right direction to put in a decent performance and get the win.

“As a player you take a lot from those performances where your backs are against the wall.

“We went behind in the first game of the season and came back to win.

“You’re always learning different ways to try and get a result.

“The more ways we can do that between now and the end of the season the better chance we have of getting what we want.

“At this stage being top doesn’t matter too much.

“I think it’s only after 15-20 games if you’re still top, then you can start looking ahead a bit.”