Match preview Vs Oxford Utd

An enforced break of two weeks has seen quite a bit of a build up towards this game tomorrow.  Games against Oxford Utd are usually quite a big affair and one that both sets of fans look forward to and this one looks like being just the same.

Oxford, for once, have started the season well and have stormed into an early lead at the top of the table and on current form they'll be hard to dislodge because they have only dropped points in five games all season and lost just the once, at Mansfield in September.  It's high time they lost another one then.

With our long break we will be at full strength and just two players will be missing from the side.  Both Chris McPhee and Lee Baker will be missing due to suspension but at least with McPhee the Oxford game will be the last one he'll miss.  Mark Yates bought in Danny Andrew from Peterborough the other week in time for the game game at Cambridge and he did well covering for Baker but couldn't stop us falling to defeat.

Yates was hoping to bring in another loan player this week but this has now fallen through after a lack of financial backing arose.

Oxford have a fair few ex Harriers in their ranks now, a fact that is well known by us.  James Constable and Adam Murray joined them a couple of years ago and have both been back to Aggborough since then.  At the end of last season our former club captain Mark Creighton joined the U's and has quickly become a favourite there, nicknamed the 'Beast' by their fans, and was joined soon after by goalkeeper Ryan Clarke following his release by Northwich.

The only Oxford player missing, to my knowledge, will be Ross Perry on international duty with the Scotland U21 side in Azerbaijan.

The Oxford fans will be travelling in numbers for the game and are forecasting that they will be bringing between 1,200 to, in some cases, 2000 supporters to the game.  If they are right then that should make for a brilliant atmosphere in the ground and should hopefully help to raise our game.  Based on recent results it needs raising.

The other way to raise our game is for our own fans to match the U's fans chant for chant and cheer for cheer.  I'm sure we can manage that.




Harriers from:
Coleman, Singh, Andrew, Riley, Courtney, Sharpe, Farrell, Finnigan, Knights, Hadley, McDermott, Bennett, Hayward, Caines, Costello, Barnes-Homer, Smikle, Dolman, Matthews.

Oxford from:
Clarke, Turley, Batt, Sandwith, Bulman, Foster, Creighton, Chapman, Murray, Constable, Midson, Clist, Kelly, Potter, Day, Deering, Kinniburgh, Green, Cook, Woodley, Groves, Sampson, Benjamin.

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