Crawley Town visit the United Stadium this evening for some reason. Oxford will be hoping to defend their unbeaten home record, where only Forest Green Rovers have taken a point this season, and will look to build on their hard-fought 1-0 win at Gateshead on Saturday. That win enabled the team to immediately put aside memories of last Tuesday's 2-1 defeat at Mansfield Town, and so should enable them to play with a bit more creative freedom today. Oxford are eight points clear at the top of the Conference, and looking good value for that lead, having scored more goals and conceded fewer than all the other sides in this division.

Chris Wilder will have to make at least two changes to the settled line-up he has achieved in the last few fixtures. Jamie Cook is ineligible to play because of some bizarre clause in the terms of his transfer deal from Crawley forbidding him to face them today, and Damien Batt is suspended having picked up his fifth yellow card of the season at Gateshead. Adam Chapman is likely to deputise for Batt, while Cook's place could be decided by a quick round of rock-paper-scissors between Jack Midson, Alex Rhodes, Alfie Potter (if he's recovered from his virus), and youngster Aaron Woodley. One player who is definitely not in contention is Chris Carruthers. His loan spell at Crawley finished on Friday, and he was immediately packed up the M1 to sign for York City on a one-month loan.

Crawley have a couple of selection problems of their own to deal with. Central defender Karl Broadhurst is suspended for the game after being sent off in their 2-1 win over Rushden & Diamonds at the weekend, while ever-popular manager Steve Evans serves the second game of his three-match, possibly extending to 13 match, ban. However, Crawley noticeably play better when not under the scrutiny of Evans' beady little pig-eyes, so that's no real comfort for the Yellows. Of greater comfort, perhaps, is the knowledge that Jefferson Louis and Eddie Hutchinson are on Crawley's books, although they presumably have other players who know what they're doing as they are eighth in the table. [@opponent]crawley town[/@opponent] [@connection]crawley town[/@connection]