Oxford United’s players are hoping their stunning win at Chesterfield this week can be the turning point in their season.

The 2-1 triumph at the B2net Stadium knocked the Spireites off the top of League Two and turned the formbook upside down.

More importantly for the Us, though, was that they arrested a run of five successive defeats, and in the second half began playing with great confidence again.

Striker Tom Craddock, who headed in the vital 58th-minute equaliser after Chesterfield had led from the 14th minute, said: “Obviously we can’t get too carried away.

“But we’ve got to take positives from this and make sure we start picking up points because we haven’t been doing that lately – and with the quality we’ve got in our dressing room, it hasn’t been good enough.

“Although we’ve been losing a lot of games, I think we’ve been playing pretty well at times. We’ve been moving the ball and I don’t think we’ve looked like a team that has lost five on the bounce.

“We just kept believing and in the end it worked out for us.”

Manager Chris Wilder slightly altered the tactics in the second half and that, too, was key.

Craddock added: “We changed the formation around and maybe caught them by surprise a bit. It was brilliant.”

Coach Andy Melville said: “It’s just one result at the end of the day. We’re going to enjoy it and regroup and get everyone together.

“Hopefully we can kick on from this. We changed it for the second half, but sometimes it’s not about tactics.

“I thought as a group, even the substitutes who came on, it was such a big team effort.

“If you don’t get results it’s a big thing that you show great team spirit, and we did in this game. There were some really strong performances.”

Meanwhile, Jake Wright will have an X-ray to find out the extent of his foot injury.

The centre back suffered the knock at the end of the first half at Chesterfield.

Although he tried to play on, Wright was forced to admit defeat and was replaced by Harry Worley.

Josh Payne and Ben Futcher also picked up knocks, but neither is serious.

Payne had stitches in a leg injury, while Futcher suffered a dead leg.