Przemyslaw Placheta struck a superb winner to give Oxford a shock 2-1 victory over in-form Ipswich and their first win in six Sky Bet Championship matches.
Mark Harris fired the Us in front in the 28th minute with his first goal of the season.
Picking off a poor pass from Azor Matusiwa towards Cedric Kipre, the Wales striker saw Christian Walton save his first shot but made no mistake with his follow-up.
Leif Davis equalised for Ipswich in the 53rd minute, volleying home unmarked from the edge of the area when Marcelino Nunez picked him out with a pinpoint outswinging corner.
But substitute Placheta broke clear on the right from Brian De Keersmaecker’s ball out of defence in the 77th minute, and the Pole cut inside a defender before finishing clinically from 20 yards.
Town had come into the game in fine form on the back of three straight away wins.
Oxford head coach Gary Rowett, unable to call on his star midfielder Cameron Brannagan who is out until the New Year with a calf injury, rewarded Filip Krastev for his late equalising goal at Norwich on Tuesday with a starting place.
United had slipped into the Championship’s bottom three in midweek following Sheffield United’s 3-0 defeat of Portsmouth, so the importance of this game to both teams was clear.
It was Town who engineered the game’s first real chance with Sindre Egeli firing low past the post from 15 yards from Davis’s pass.
Jaden Philogene was often the outlet for the visitors on the left touchline and from one of his bursts into the box, and then a cross from the overlapping Davis, Egeli headed against the outside of the post on 21 minutes.
It was out of the blue when Harris latched on to sloppiness at the back by Matusiwa to put United in front.
The goal lifted the crowd and with the stadium now more noisy, De Keersmaecker struck a powerful left-foot shot that brought Walton to his knees.
The Tractor Boys had to get better in the second half, and they did.
Davis volleyed in Nunez’s corner to make it all square and Town’s players suddenly had an extra spring in their step.
Oxford keeper Jamie Cumming became a busy man, turning Philogene’s shot past his left post and then beating out a Nunez piledriver.
And when George Hirst broke clear on the left, Cumming spread himself superbly to save from close range.
But Oxford had a second wind as Walton had to save from Will Lankshear and after Placheta’s goal, Ole Romeny was a whisker away from making it three.
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