Adrian Segecic scored on his Championship debut as Portsmouth beat Oxford 1-0 United at the Kassam Stadium.
Colby Bishop’s initial strike was saved and rebounded to the feet of the Australian midfielder who powerfully struck the ball into the back of the net after a loose back pass by Cameron Brannagan.
Pompey took the lead with fewer than 10 minutes to go in the first half, and Oxford’s Brannagan will have been kicking himself for the way it came about.
His sloppy back pass was sent into the path of Bishop who ran through and seemed to have too long to think about his shot as he played it straight at U’s keeper Jamie Cumming.
But the rebound came out to the feet of Pompey’s new attacking midfielder Segecic who fired the ball home with his left foot.
Just before the break, Oxford fans called for a penalty as Callum Lang wrestled with Stan Mills on the edge of the box but the referee Dean Whitestone did not view the incident to be deserving of a spot-kick.
Oxford started the second half with much more enthusiasm, enjoying more possession and managing to break beyond Portsmouth’s back line on a few occasions but with nothing to show for their efforts.
As the clock reached the hour mark, Oxford managed to scramble the ball into the back of the net via the head of Tottenham loanee Will Lankshear but the assistant referee raised the flag for offside.
The game then became a bit heated with big challenges flying in from both sets of players as a number of bookings and warnings were handed out to each side.
Oxford pushed in the closing moments of the game, forcing a delightful save out of Blues keeper Nicolas Schmid in the final minute of regulation time to seal the visitors’ win.