SIMON Eastwood admitted a careless Oxford United got what they deserved as Peterborough United pinched the points.

Ivan Toney scored the only goal of a dour contest 14 minutes from time, inflicting a defeat which sent Karl Robinson’s side back into the Sky Bet League One relegation zone.

United’s display fell well short of their efforts in recent weeks and Eastwood bemoaned the lack of urgency from a side who should be scrapping for survival.

The goalkeeper said: “It’s an opportunity we’ve wasted. They’ve struggled for results.

“(But) if we’re not up for it in every single game we get punished and we weren’t up for it.

“It’s disappointing when there’s not that many games left and with the trouble we’re in, we need almost eight or nine players to be bang on the game and cause problems.”

He added: “It didn’t look like a team that needed to win.

“It was flat, we didn’t create many chances and that was the disappointing thing.

“There was a team who were there for the taking if we could have created one or two better chances, but we were unable to do that.

“It’s another game ticked off, but we’ve just got to keep going.”

If the overall performance was underwhelming, the goal which separated the sides smacked of negligence.

United had time to get organised for Marcus Maddison’s free-kick, yet somehow managed to leave their main goal threat completely unmarked in the penalty area.

Eastwood said: “It’s sloppy from us as a team.

“It’s just a run in behind us and he’s got so much time it’s a joke really.

“Good strikers like that will punish you and that’s what he did.

“We know what we’re doing before the game, but it might be one or two that have switched off and not stayed with their man.

“If you set up for something like that at corners or free-kicks you have a man and you’ve got to stick with him.

“For him to have so much time was nowhere near good enough.”

While it was United’s first league defeat since New Year’s Day, progress has been painfully slow due to the number of games which have finished all square.

Victories are the only way to pull away from trouble, but they have only had one in the last ten outings.

Eastwood said: “Some draws you take, but we’ve had far too many.

“You’re going to lose games and it’s not the end of the world.

“If we were winning as well you can handle it, but I think we’ve only won one game since Christmas.

“That’s the worrying thing.

“We are still in and around it, so it comes down to us with the big

games we’ve got both at home and away.”

The result only heightened the importance to finally claim an away win and they have two chances this week – at Accrington Stanley tomorrow night and Blackpool on Saturday.