DARREN Patterson admitted that although Rob Duffy was sent off, he was relieved not to be down to nine men.

The Oxford United manager acknowledged that while he wanted to look at the replay over Duffy's red card, he thought skipper Barry Quinn was lucky to escape with a yellow earlier in the half.

Patterson said: "I can't comment on the Duffy dismissal until I've seen the incident on the video, but with the Quinn one, yes, I think we got away with it.

"What I can say is that we still stayed positive and went to win the game, even when we went down to ten men.

"I can't hide the fact, though, that the sending-off hurts us massively because Rob will now miss another three games.

"I'll be dealing with him when I've seen the incident."

The U's dropped to 13th in the table following the draw, and Patterson said: "I'm disappointed that we haven't won, at home, but in the whole scheme of things - when you consider we had two or three 16/17-year-olds on the pitch, and two players we've had to rush back - we've got to be pleased with the effort and the commitment of the players here.

"We were never under any threat - Billy Turley had to make two saves, but that was when we were down to ten men.

"I was disappointed with us the first half. We knew they held a high line, but as they say, best-laid plans . . . sometimes they don't do what you expect them to do and they dropped off. And we went too direct.

"Instead of players sussing that a lot quicker, it took us 20 minutes.

"We should have been sliding it down the sides and passing it quicker, into feet and getting it wide. We didn't do it, we felt a system change at half-time would do it, and it did."

Patterson said he missed out on three players on Friday, and although one of them is now a dead deal, he is still hoping at least one of the other two will materialise into a signing.

"I make no bones about it, we need players in," he said. "Hopefully we can strengthen the squad this week. Loan deals are more likely but we'll do anything we can."