Marcus Dinanga’s hat-trick helped Gateshead improve their play-off prospects and deepened the misery for bottom club Oxford City in a 4-0 Vanarama National League win.

Luke Hannant opened the scoring at Gateshead International Stadium with a 17th-minute penalty before City’s hopes of a comeback were dented by the 35th-minute dismissal of Andre Burley, following a second yellow card.

Gateshead were 2-0 ahead less than two minutes into the second half when Dinanga netted after Ben Worman’s shot had been saved.

He prodded in a third 10 minutes later before wrapping up his treble with his 17th goal of the campaign late on.