Oxford United put a five game unbeaten run on the line as they head for Fleetwood Town on Saturday.
The U’s have added two home draws to three straight wins and Manager Pep Clotet now comes face to face with a familiar figure in Fleetwood boss Uwe Rosler, someone Pep has a lot of time for:
“I respect him a lot” Pep told iFollow. “He has worked at Leeds, as I did, and in Norway as Head Coach at the same club where I was and we have a lot of mutual friends. His is not only a very good manager but also a very good tactician and has a fantastic ability to organise his teams and get a performance out of his players.
“He had a fantastic season last season in building his team and getting his own ideas into it. In terms of time they are obviously one year ahead of us in what we are trying to do. They showed how close they were to promotion last year and they are always improving so they are a good measure for us in League 1.”
United welcome Rob Hall back into the squad along with Dwight Tiendalli while Pep was full of praise for right back Christian Ribeiro who is also expected to return:
“Hally is back. He had a good week and a half training, and Dwight has had a week more and is OK as well.
“We will assess Ribs today. He had a little inflamation in the hip. He has been playing hard in four or five very intense games and I think fans saw against Charlton that he wasn’t feeling very comfortable but he still showed his fantastic attitude and commitment to the club because he saw the game through to the finish and scored a goal.
“He was in pain but kept saying he would get through it. That shows how committed he is, but obviously afterwards we needed to give him a bit of rest and recovery rather than it leading to a bigger problem.”
See much more of this interview along with a highly entertaining chat with Ricardinho, only in iFollow.