Playing the Cards, right

From the Rage Online newsdesk Friday, October 19th, 2007  

Tomorrow sees the visit of Woking to the United Stadium, as Oxford United attempt to secure back-to-back wins for only the second time this season. Oxford won 1-0 at Farsley Celtic last Sunday, which will give the Yellows some much-needed confidence going into tomorrow's match.[@opponent]woking[/@opponent][@connection]woking[/@connection] Tomorrow's game is unlikely to see a repeat of last season's crowd, when 11,065 set a new Conference record at the Boxing Day fixture. That came at a time when the Us were still top of the league, unbeaten at home, and on the back of a huge promotional push by the club's ticket office. This season, it is reasonable to say, there is not the same expectation surrounding the club, which has already lost once at Grenoble Road, and where the marketing exercises are based around games against Africa national sides, rather than the bread and butter of the league.

Jim Smith has already indicated that he will have to make at least one change from the side that beat Farsley, as Phil Gilchrist is again suffering from knee-knack (although a different knee to his normally knacked one, and indications are that he will be fit for the trip to Merthyr next weekend). However, Barry Quinn is fit again and is likely to come in to the side as a direct replacement. None of the other injured players are fit yet, so the good news is that Quinn's availability is unlikely to lead to a resumption of the back-five formation that has so alienated United's supporters. There are unlikely to be any other changes to the line-up, with Jordan Rhodes and Stefan Bailey likely to make their home debuts following their successful appearances up in Yorkshire, unless Smith decides to start with Matt Day at left back and push Alex Jeannin up to left midfield, leaving Danny Rose on the bench. Alex Fisher is again likely to be on the bench. Apparently United have only 17 fit professionals for tomorrow's game, and with 16 names appearing on the team sheet, Rage Online was considering opening a book on who the unlucky player who misses out is likely to be. Our money is on Michael Standing who, for some strange reason, doesn't seem to appear in Smith's thinking recently.

Woking will be looking to bounce back from their recent 3-0 home defeat by York City, which leaves the Cards in 17th place, just four points behind United. Their last away game was a 1-1 draw at Stevenage Borough, who drew 3-3 with Burton Albion last night in a game that saw the Brewers move up to second place. Rage Online is slightly confident about tomorrow's game (although we've said that before, wrongly), especially if Smith sticks with a nice 4-4-2 formation, and we're going to stick our necks out and predict a 2-0 win for the Lads. You heard it here first (or possibly second or third).

This entry was posted on Friday, October 19th, 2007 at 12:00 am and appears under 2007, News Items.

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