Mansfield Town striker Matt Green apologised to manager Adam Murray after his missed penalty – the Stags first for 85 games – allowed Oxford to fight back for a 1-1 draw at One Call Stadium on Saturday.

Green blasted his spot kick against the bar after the impressive Mitchell Rose was tripped by the keeper in the eighth minute, five minutes after Craig Westcarr cracked in a 16-yard half-volley on his full debut.

Moments later Green was then denied in a one-on-one finish by keeper Sam Slocombe.

Oxford recovered from their slow start and the Stags were indebted to two fine stops by keeper Matt Jensen, tipping over a 20-yard free kick from Kemar Roofe and then denying the striker a late winner.

Roofe did salvage a point though for Oxford to stretch their unbeaten run to 13 matches when Reggie Lambe was harshly judged to have fouled on the edge of the area.

Roofe rolled his 60th minute penalty into the bottom corner to deny the Stags a first home win of the season.

Afterwards Murray said: “Matt has just apologised to me and said he let me down, which shows how honest he is. He is a big player for us.

“To to go toe to toe with one of the favourites for this league and come out with a point has to be pleasing.

“It should have been all over in the first 20 minutes when we might have been three up but sometimes that’s the way these things go and you end up grinding out a point.

“When they got chances we relied on our shotstopper. That’s what he gets paid for and he pulled off a couple of ‘worldies’ today.

“They are one of the big hitters to get promotion this season and we should have put it to bed early.

“I wasn’t happy at half-time, even though we were leading and had the better of the chances as I thought we showed them too much respect and sat off them too much, allowing them to play in areas we don’t usually
allow teams to play.

“In the end we had to be resilient against a very good side.

“We are a fit bunch, but we didn’t have that zip or energy today. Fortunately we have no midweek game which will give us a bit of a breather that will help the boys regenerate.”

One area of concern for Murray will be the amount of bookings his side is booking up, seven at Accrington in midweek and six in the draw against Oxford.