Andy Hessenthaler was pleased to see his side give their all on Saturday, even if they didn’t get the win he had hoped for.

The Gills manager made a bold selection for the game, starting with four forwards, but again injury problems affected his plans.

He said: "We worked our socks off and leading up to the game, as per usual this season, we lost two players to injury in Jackman and Payne and within a few minutes of the game starting we lost Gavin Tomlin.

"We then put on a player (Spiller) who has been out for three and a half months and has had hardly any football. We had to take him off in the end because he was out on his legs.

"That’s been story of our season but I can’t ask any more from our players for effort. They put everything in and the only thing we are disappointed with is that final third. If we had found a little more quality then maybe it would have been a different game.

"We defended for our lives. Matt Fish cleared one off the line and Paulo Gazzaniga made a great save in the first half. I can’t fault the boys, they gave everything for the shirt and these (Oxford) were one of the fancied teams this season to go up, like ourselves.

"It’s never an easy place to get a result and they will probably be disappointed like ourselves that they haven’t got into the top three. We have taken four points off them over the season and it’s just unfortunate that we have put ourselves in this position.

"We kept a clean sheet and there were some really good performances. I thought Connor Essam and Andy Frampton were terrific. The back four defended very well and Montrose and Whelpdale were out on their feet. It was a massive effort by them. I couldn’t ask for anymore."