It seems less than a week ago since Crawley Town visited the United Stadium to be sent back to Sussex with their tails between their legs.[@news]2244[/@news][@opponent]Crawley Town[/@opponent][@connection]Crawley Town[/@connection] In that game United scored their only goal in the whole of December, eight games in total, thanks to the predatory instincts of Phil Trainer. Tomorrow's game starts a whole new year, and the Us will be hoping it brings far better fortunes than the disappointments of 2007. It was on New Year's Day '07 that United got bumped off the top of the table by Dagenham & Redbridge after the Yellows lost 2-1 at Exeter City, and United spent the remainder of the season in second place, losing in the play-off semi-finals on penalties to Exeter, after leading 2-0 on aggregate. All that was followed by the utter misery that has so far been 2007/08, in which Oxford have gone from one low point to the next, with defeats at Histon, Droylsden, Northwich, and most recently Tonbridge Angels all adding to the sense of despair that has surrounded the club since the mid-1990s. And that doesn't even take into account the televised 5-0 humiliation at Rushden & Diamonds that saw Jim Smith decide to step aside and give Darren Patterson a go. So far, despite a promising start, things haven't gone too well for Patto, and a lot of people will be looking at who he can bring in and, as importantly, ship out during the January transfer window.

Obviously tomorrow will be too soon for any new faces to appear in the squad, and so Patterson will have to rely mostly on the same players who failed to muster anything noteworthy against Kidderminster on Saturday. For that game United had an extremely young and inexperienced bench, but with few options in the squad that is unlikely to change for tomorrow's game. Danny Rose missed out with a recurrence of his hamstring injury, while Gary Twigg has now left the club and returned whence he came. Ben Weedon has accepted a new non-contract deal to stay at the club, his extended scholarship having ended, and he may be rewarded with a place in the team, should Patto decide to give Alex Jeannin another go on the left wing. Luke Foster is likely to return to the defence, although Michael Corcoran didn't do anything wrong against Kidderminster, but the partnership that Foster has forged with Barry Quinn is likely to be one that Patto will want to retain. It is up front where Oxford are really failing to register, but none of the current crop of strikers look particularly like ending the current goalless trend. We would like to see Alex Fisher given a start, and Matty Taylor has done well enough in his two fleeting appearances to be worth a longer look, although we accept that he is probably too young to be considered the side's main attacking threat just yet. We anticipate that there will not be many changes to the line-up.

Since losing to Oxford, Crawley notched their best away win of the season, beating Farsley Celtic 5-1, with Jamie Cook scoring the fifth goal. Cook looked like Crawley's most threatening player at Minchery Farm on Boxing Day, and he was once sponsored by Rage On. Last season United won 1-0 at Crawley with a very late long-range Matt Day goal, live on Sky. This season, United supporters will be more than happy with a similar outcome. Unfortunately, even at our most optimistic, the best Rage Online can see United doing is to get a draw, and given United's problems going forward, that's likely to be 0-0.

By the way, Happy New Year. We hope.