OXFORD United Women were leapfrogged by Exeter City after falling to a 1-0 defeat at home against the Devon side.
Sophie Gillies scored the only goal of the game after three minutes, as United saw their five-game unbeaten run come to an end.
The first half saw the U’s get a lot of crosses into the penalty box, but none of them were able to help find a leveller, and the closest that United came to an equaliser was nine minutes before the break, when Phoebie Poole sent an effort over the crossbar.
At the other end, the U’s needed Beth Howard to make a number of smart saves to keep the scoreline at 1-0.
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United dominated possession in the second period, but still couldn’t a leveller, with the closest thing to an equaliser being a chance from Poole in the final moments, however her effort went narrowly over the bar.
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U’s manager Sam Rose said: “We weren’t good enough. I think it’s as simple as that. We’ve gone behind in the game really early, and Exeter have held onto it.
“By our normal standards, I don’t think we can be particularly pleased with any of it.”
He added: “As the girls always do, they’ve tried and worked hard, but we’ve just not managed to impose ourselves really and create anywhere near enough to get back into the game.
“I thought if we got a goal, we might’ve gone and got another one, and we just needed to get our tails up, but we didn’t manage to create much.
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“Credit to the opposition, they’ve gone ahead early and held onto it. Sometimes that’s the way it goes.
“We’ll need to learn from that in terms of how we react to going behind, decision-making on the ball and sticking to the things that we do well as a team.”
