Oxford United boss Karl Robinson on Sunderland substitutions

The U’s had the better of the first half, but the hosts took control after the break and hit the woodwork twice.

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Like against Rotherham United last Saturday and at Ipswich Town three weeks ago, United had to dig deep to share the spoils with a promotion rival.

But Robinson revealed it was only when Simon Eastwood tipped Nathan Broadhead’s 80th-minute effort onto the post that he was happy to settle for a point.

The U’s head coach said: “When they hit the post I thought we got a bit of luck and on the turnover we could’ve been the one to capitalise.

“When you’re coming into those dying moments there’s always a slight worry, but my players saw that out really well.

“We’ve just got to make sure we play better in the second half of these games and find a bit more consistency.

“It’s a long way to come and I think we’ve done ourselves no harm.”

WATCH: Highlights of yesterday's game

Mark Sykes looked set to come off the bench midway through the second half, only for Robinson to instead bring on Marcus McGuane and Dan Agyei for James Henry and Matty Taylor.

The Irishman entered the fray with eight minutes left and the U’s head coach explained his thinking behind the substitutions.

He said: “There were three combats where we lost the physical battle in the middle of the pitch.

“We needed a bit of power in there and Marcus was the obvious one.

“Then Matty goes down and you think he’s been booked, he’s had a bit of time out and we can’t lose him just yet.

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“We felt we had no control of the football.

“Matty is a phenomenal striker when we have possession, but if we’re going to play deeper and hit teams on the counter-attack then he has to play with a second striker.

“We felt our only hope of scoring late on was with the pace of Sykesy, Dan and Gavin (Whyte) and it nearly worked.

“Your substitutions constantly keep changing.”