St Albans City fell to a third consecutive National League South loss with a 2-1 defeat at Oxford City on New Year’s Day.

It was a second time in two games that the Saints had suffered at the hands of Oxford who they were beaten 4-2 by on Boxing Day at Clarence Park.

Those results have seen Ian Allinson’s City drop to third in the table, with leaders Maidenhead United heading to Hertfordshire on Saturday.

Oxford took a sixth minute lead as Saints keeper James Russell saved a Stephane Ngamvoulou header from a corner, but Reece Fleet fired in the rebound.

Striker Jamie Cureton bagged his third goal in two games with a tidy finish after a long ball forward was not dealt with by the home defence to pull St Albans back level on 52 minutes.

However, before the hour mark Stephane Ngamvoulou tapped in to secure all three points for Oxford.

After the game boss Allinson said: “We maybe deserved a draw out of it, I don’t think we deserved to win.

“We huffed and puffed a lot, had a lot of possession, but some of our quality wasn’t good enough.

“When we got in some good areas it wasn’t very good in terms of the final pass or the final bit of quality.

“You want to go in to these games and not give anything away too quickly.

“You still want to be in the game after 20-25 minutes, but we weren’t and we have had to go and chase the game again and left ourselves a little but exposed at the back.”