We get set for the home game against Luton this Saturday
Oxford United welcome Luton Town to the Kassam Stadium on Saturday looking to build on a fantastic 5-1 away win at Crawley and keep extending their gap over the chasing pack at the top of Sky Bet League 2.The U’s welcome a Hatters side who beat Dagenham on Tuesday night to revive their play-off hopes. With a six point gap to the play-off places Luton will come to Oxford chasing all three points and U’s Head Coach Michael Appleton, who watched their game the other night, believes they are dangerous opponents.
“Luton still have a massive chance and it’s going to be difficult” he told Yellow Player HD. “They have a lot of quality, especially at the top of the field and in wide areas. We are mindful of how difficult our task is. I went over to watch them on Tuesday: we rarely get an opportunity to do that because we’ll tend to play on the same days and evenings, but having watched them it just helps me get an idea first hand of what they do and how they do it.”
“But so far this week the focus has been fantastic in training and we’ll look to keep that going as we build up to the game.”
United welcome John Lundstram back into the squad after a three game suspension, but whether he regains his place may depend on how well Josh Ruffels recovers from a cut leg he suffered last weekend. Michael is taking no chances with Ruffels’ injury.
“Josh is fit although we’ll be cautious in case he gets a knock on it. He’ll wear shin pads in training although the swelling has gone down quite a bit now. It’s been a long time since I saw players in shin pads in training! As a YTS lad at Man United Eric Harrison wanted us to train as we played so made us wear them for a short time, but it’s not something we would normally do now.”
With Lundstram available, Jake Wright chomping at the bit and top scorer Kemar Roofe fully recovered from a stomach bug that left him on the bench last week the U’s have fierce competition all over the park, leaving the Head Coach with some very difficult calls.
“Yes, but they are good decisions. I’d much rather have those type of decisions to make than to be turning round to the bench and wondering how we are going to turn a game or do something different.
“As always, I will try and pick the best side to win the game on the day, knowing that we have players with the ability to change the game if we need to. It should be a great atmosphere and we need the fans to come along, get behind us and play a massive part for us on the day.”
See a video interview with Michael, plus John Lundstram as well as a full Preview Show and commentary on the whole game LIVE only in Yellow Player HD