One bad moment robbed Russell Martin of a joyful 90 minutes as Elliot Lee’s stoppage-time leveller helped Oxford salvage a 1-1 League One draw at MK Dons

Andrew Surman’s first-half opener had looked like it had given Dons all three points having placed a low curling effort into the far corner.

But Luton loanee Lee had the final say seven minutes into time added on, heading in a knockback to leave home manager Martin cursing his luck.

“We were the better team. I’m sure their manager will say something else, but we were the better team,” he said.

“We controlled the game. I thought we started really well. Playing this way there are always going to be a few scary moments but we limited them to very little.

“We should be sitting here talking about the performance and how delighted I am, but I’m angry and disappointed with the goal we conceded so late.

“Too many moments we could have prevented it, but we didn’t – we turned down too many opportunities, so I’m sitting here proud of the performance, but we’ve been let down by a really, really poor goal to concede.

“I think they managed the game really well, we just have to see it through. We just didn’t manage the game well enough in the last minute.

“It is what it is, we have a point against a good team that I’m sure will be competing with the games in hand that they have.”

Oxford are without a win in three but the point keeps their play-off hopes in check.

They needed to do things the hard way, with the hosts’ opener coming after some superb build-up play in the first half, finished off neatly by Surman.

Matty Taylor fired into the side netting and Anthony Forde hit the woodwork but the elusive goal eventually came for Karl Robinson’s side, Dan Agyei setting up Lee to finish.

“I felt we were a bit sloppy in terms of our front three,” said the manager. “We did everything right in phase one, but in phase two and phase three we let ourselves down a little bit.

“That’s just the way the game went. The luck that we have had of late has been difficult to accept, but I’m really pleased with the energy of the players, I’m really pleased with the desire to keep doing the right things.

“For us to score, I felt we should have tested the keeper more but I felt it was an all-round good 90 minutes for us.

“We’ve played well here; we didn’t deserve to come away from here with nothing.

“We don’t always talk about results, we talk about how performances are.

“Our processes have been right, we’ve just been missing the opportunities when they come along.

“If we keep doing the right thing we’ll win more games than we’ll lose.”