Bradford have had a tricky Christmas period so far, losing 2-1 at AFC Wimbledon on Saturday, before a 3-1 at home defeat to Peterborough United on Boxing Day.
Boss Stuart McCall told the Telegraph & Argus that he expects a reaction from his players against the U's:
“The players can’t let it linger" he said. "We have got to be fresh when we come out again on Saturday. I’m not big on stats or records – it’s reactions.
“It was a tricky game on the back of Wimbledon, but we didn’t cope with their threats well enough. We can’t affect what’s happened now. It’s how we react.
"I don’t want anyone’s head on the ground. We are up and at ‘em.”
McCall expects a tough game against the U's though: “They’ve got a capable group of players, there’s no doubt about that, and they’ll be targeting the top six. We had a good game against them down there.
“We’re aware of their strengths and what they’ll bring but we’ve got to focus on ourselves and focus on putting in and strong and committed performance.We will always take an interest in what the opposition might do, but we must have a clear idea of how we are going to approach the game. We cannot get too focused on Oxford setting up in this way or that way because they could easily change things to accommodate these two matches. We have to focus on what we need to do and what we must do better. There are certain things, certainly defensively, we can work on during training. Some of the positional errors we have made that have resulted in goals recently can be ironed out on the training pitch."
"Unfortunately we have four or five injuries at the moment that will limit our options. A lot of the lads have played a fair bit of football recently because of these injuries, but we will be making changes on Saturday. That is not a knee-jerk reaction to Tuesday (vs Peterborough), it was already pre-planned. Having not won in the last two games, we know that this Saturday is the most important game at present. There is no mental fatigue within the squad but we will need to assess the group to see how they are doing physically ahead of the two games."