OXFORD United will need to improve in all but one area when they visit Lincoln City this weekend, according to Karl Robinson.

The head coach was not happy with the goalless draw at Bolton Wanderers on Tuesday night.

But after developing a habit of conceding cheap goals in the last month, a hard-fought clean sheet was precious.

Coming on the back of Saturday’s 3-0 victory over Tranmere Rovers, it was only the second time in 11 months United had kept the opposition out in successive league games.

While they gave more chances than normal, Robinson was buoyed to see his side’s gritty determination.

“What I was most pleased about, was when we made a mistake, we put our bodies on the line,” he said. “We made some outstanding blocks.

“We’ve now kept clean sheets in consecutive games.

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“That to me is a step in the direction we want to go in, but we’ve got to start creating more and asking more questions with more forward passes and more forward runs.

“I’m still proud of my players for their attitude and how they managed to do the right things when things were going against us.”

Robinson’s men were up against a Bolton side revitalised in their first home league game since being taken over.

Lincoln could be similarly galvanised this weekend as they close in on a new manager, with former U’s boss Michael Appleton the new favourite to take over.

Robinson said: “We could end up playing Lincoln on Saturday with a new manager walking in the door.

“That’s the fixture list we’ve been dealt with, but we just know we’ve got to perform a lot better on Saturday and the rest of the season.”

Although the midweek performance fell short of what is required, skipper John Mousinho believes it was crucial they took something from the game.

He said: “We have been playing well, dominating games and coming away with nothing.

“We need points, the position we’re in means we need to build momentum and a loss at Bolton would have really dented morale.

“It would have been ‘same old Oxford, one win, one loss, back to the drawing board, where are we going to be this season, struggling around in the bottom half’.

“We’re still there and we need to kick on, but it’s a massive positive we’ve kept a clean sheet.”