Oxford United will be much closer to a full squad when they welcome AFC Wimbledon to the Kassam Stadium on 29th December, with one notable absentee.
With their fixture at Portsmouth postponed the U’s have a blank Boxing Day but Cameron Brannagan, Herbie Kane, Luke McNally and Sam Winnall should all be able to return to training ahead of the Wimbledon game after self-isolating and missing the match at home to Wigan.
“They should be back although we still have ‘return to play’ protocols they have to go through” Karl Robinson told us. “We will follow the rules, keep testing everyone, but fingers crossed we will have a few more players available than we did last Saturday.”
Jordan Thorniley will be available again after serving his one match suspension but James Henry will be missing after suffering a calf injury in the warm up ahead of the Wigan game.
“I had my eye on him as it happened” Karl told iFollow. “We acted quickly and because Jamo is an experienced player he knew something wasn’t right and stopped straight away rather than make it worse. It will be maybe a month or so before he is available but that’s not as bad as we first thought and it could have been a lot worse.
“Obviously we will miss him, especially with some big games coming up but we have players coming back into the group and as usual we just get on with things. We will give the players Christmas Day off for once and then we will be back in and preparing for the game on 29th.”
Get behind the U’s. Tickets for the home game against AFC Wimbledon on 29th December are available HERE