KARL Robinson was bitterly frustrated a poor spell undermined an otherwise encouraging performance for Oxford United.

The visitors were strong defensively and clinical up front in the opening 60 minutes to take a 3-0 lead.

But two points were tossed away in a madcap six minutes where Scunthorpe United, who had looked dead and buried, roared back to level.

The biggest issue for Robinson was all three goals came from set-pieces, which the U’s did not need to give away.

He said: “I’m fuming with the arrogance to allow them back in the game, with the stupidity of the

free-kicks we gave away, but take those silly little things out of the grand scheme of the game and we were very good.

“It’s just when we did something silly we got punished. You don’t always get that.

“The four goals we’ve conceded in this (six-game) unbeaten run have come from set-pieces, which is not something we’re overly happy with.”

While United had shown an appetite for grinding out results earlier in their unbeaten run, here it appeared to go out of the window when they got 3-0 up.

Robinson felt it showed they were not good enough to deviate from the game plan.

He said: “We’re on the right track and playing well, just cut out the silly little things and get ourselves on the edge.

“Some people might not like that about our team playing on the edge, but we can’t always play pretty football.

“We’re coming into the yellow ball season, it’s a different game and we’ve got to be brave enough and savvy enough to deal with the unpredictability at this time of the year.”