DARREN Patterson is convinced Oxford United will soon start climbing the Blue Square Premier if they continue to show the spirit of their last away game, and keep on making good chances.

o Far from being downhearted by yet another Setanta setback, the U's manager believes the 2-0 defeat at Wrexham demonstrated the team's character as they sweated buckets with ten men for nearly 80 minutes.

United just need a few breaks, and greater discipline when defending to stop getting early red cards.

"The players worked their socks off, no-one could say they haven't given anything other than every ounce," Patterson said following Thursday's game at the Racecourse Ground.

It was United's third defeat in four league games this season, and their tenth in a row without a win when being screened live on Setanta.

"It's a long season, football does kick you in the nether regions sometimes," he said.

"But we know that, if we can keep 11 players on the pitch, and get our injured players back quickly, we will definitely start climbing this league, there's no two ways about that."

With all the other teams playing today, Oxford will drop further in the table and will be under even greater pressure to win Monday's home match against Woking.

But Patterson saw enough from his players after they were reduced to ten at Wrexham to encourage him greatly, and picked out keeper Jake Cole, who had his best game to date since joining on loan from QPR.

"To have that sending-off so early, it killed the game for us," he added.

"We did a 4-4-1 to stabilise things and that worked pretty well. I was disappointed with their headed goal but other than that they didn't really create any- thing.

"We knew they were going to have chances, but they were all from long distance.

"I thought our goalkeeper was outstanding - he's a young man and he didn't deserve to be on the losing side with that performance.

"At half-time we changed it, were a lot more positive because we needed a goal, and went 3-4-2, and I thought controlled it and had the better chances.

"We put the two kids (Sam Deering and Alex Fisher) on to freshen things up, and that nearly worked straight away, but it wasn't to be.

"We're going in the right direction.

"Our spirit's good, things just aren't going our way well at the moment."