MICHAEL Raynes rued an outstanding goalkeeping display from Marcus Bettinelli as Oxford United played out a goalless draw at Accrington Stanley.

The defender came the closest to breaking the deadlock in a spell of heavy pressure during the second half.

Raynes headed a late equaliser in the FA Cup tie on the same ground last December and had two opportunities to be the hero on Saturday.

Both came from David Hunt long throws and while the first header was relatively comfortable for the goalkeeper, the second chance ten minutes from time forced a superb save.

Bettinelli, on loan from Fulham, thwarted several other visiting players and Raynes admitted he had no idea how the 21-year-old had kept out his efforts.

“The keeper did well to save them and he got the man-of-the-match award, so there’s nothing you can do about that,” he said.

“The second header was the better one. I don’t know how he got there. It was an unbelievable save.

“It just didn’t seem to go in for me, but my first goal of the season is going to come soon and I’ll keep knocking on the door.”

While Bettinelli was the pick of Accrington’s players, Raynes was Oxford’s stand-out individual.

A second clean sheet in a row, only United’s third in total, was one of the plus points for the away side.

The centre back thought they had done enough after the break to take maximum points, but predicted several of their promotion rivals would be found out at Accrington this season.

He said: “It’s a good point away from home, we should’ve won the game but we’ve got to look at the positives and it’s a clean sheet.

“This is a horrible place to come, we’ve got this out of the way now and the pitch is going to get a worse.

“A lot of teams will slip up here. We’ve just got to keep picking up points to get to where we want to be.”