Assistant manager Craig Short was delighted with how his Oxford side responded to being without manager Karl Robinson as they produced a dominant display to beat Burton 3-1 in League One.

With Robinson isolating at home after a midweek positive Covid-19 test, Short oversaw the U’s rise to sixth.

A lightening start thanks to Matty Taylor’s first-minute opener was added to by a Michael Bostwick own goal just before half-time and a late James Henry penalty after Charlie Lakin had given Albion hope with 10 minutes to play.

“There is a massive responsibility on everyone with Karl being off and they all rose to the challenge,” Short acknowledged.

“You just want to do a good job for him. He has brought me to the club and I am very thankful for that.

“You don’t want to let people down. As a player, when you go on the pitch you don’t want to let the team down and as staff you don’t want to let the club down or the fans that have travelled a long way.”

Short was more than happy with how his side controlled the game and produced a solid performance to make it four wins from five in the league.

“It’s all about winning, of course it is,” he added. “But that was a really good performance against a team that has been going well. We knew it was going to be a hard game.

“We have scored early in games and then not carried it through but what I was really pleased about was our decision making. Being a perfectionist, we could have been better in the final third at times.

“I have been involved in games where I have been 3-0 up late on and drawn 3-3 so anything can happen especially when you concede late free-kicks – but I thought we managed that really well.”

Burton boss Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink found very few positive from his side’s performance after they gave Oxford a “leg-up” inside the first minute.

“The start was hugely disappointing,” the Burton boss reflected. “And the end was too.

“I think when you play Oxford, the one thing you can’t do is give them a leg up and we did that from the start.

“We can’t give them goals. We made too many individual errors over the whole game.

“Our awareness was not good. I don’t know if it’s because of Tuesday and how good we were and doing it again, perhaps it is my fault that maybe I needed to put more freshness in the team, but we were not good today.

“To be honest, we could have been even more behind by half-time.

“Ben (Garratt) made some brilliant saves and kept us in the game but we kept making mistakes and giving them hope and the one thing you don’t do with Oxford is give them hope.”