Jake Wright believes Oxford United’s attractive style will mean supporters continue to back the team while they attempt to recover from a slow start to the season.

The U’s skipper is set to make his 200th start for the club tomorrow, when Portsmouth visit the Kassam Stadium.

Despite the season being only a fortnight old, United go into the game under some pressure after losing their opening three games in Sky Bet League Two.

While results have not gone to plan, the side have shown signs of adopting head coach Michael Appleton’s fluent game plan.

Wright is well aware United fans demand success, but the 28-year-old hopes they will appreciate how the team are seeking to play.

He said: “Obviously they want us to be winning, but surely they want us to be playing good football.

“I think a big criticism from the fans before is we haven’t played good enough football and we weren’t getting the results.

“To be fair, I agree with them in some stages.

“If you get in the play-offs you can point to that, but we didn’t.

“We haven’t played the most attractive football, it’s been effective, but they want us to play good football.

“I don’t think there will be many clubs in this league playing as well as us.

“When the results start coming it will be a really good situation.

“As long as the fans are patient, stick behind us and believe in what we’re doing, I think we’ve got a really good system.”

In the existing squad only Ryan Clarke, with 232, has made more starts for the U’s than Wright, who joined in September 2009.

The centre back suffered a slump in form at the end of last season, when he was playing with an injury.

Now fully fit, Wright’s form has recovered this season and he is delighted to reach the milestone for United.

“I love it here and I never said I wanted to go anywhere, I just had a bad time performance-wise, playing when I shouldn’t have played,” he said.

“I was having a bit of a nightmare, to be honest.

“People looked at that and thought it meant I wanted to leave, it didn’t, it meant I wanted to start playing well.

He added: “I just want to carry on doing well for the team and hopefully the results will come.

“But if you carry on playing like that and creating chances there’s no way you can go many games without winning.”

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