There have been good days for Arsenal on this season of wonder and hope and there have been great ones too. This was neither, but fair play to whoever coined that old phrase about scorecards having no need for pictures.
It was ugly and it was grim and for a shade more than an hour it had the slightest whiff of one of those cup ties where something special might be mined from the muck.
Only slight because Oxford weren't landing punches. They ran, they chased, they created a few nice patterns in midfield and they tried to make the climb.