Last night United signed midfielder Paul Wotton from Southampton on a two-month loan deal. Wotton is 33 years old and has extensive experience with Plymouth and the Saints. He played over 440 games for Plymouth, where he started his career in 1994, scoring 63 goals, and was their captain through two promotion seasons.

While with Argyle Wotton was named in the Division Three PFA team of the year in 2002, and in 2004 he won the Player of the Season award for Plymouth. He joined Southampton in June 2008 and has played 71 games for them, although he has made only three appearances this season. Oxford fans may remember him as the player that ex-U Chris Zebroski bottled when he was at Argyle, causing Wotton to require over a hundred stitches in his head.

Wotton therefore comes with bags of League experience, which for some time is something that Chris Wilder has been crying out for. He can also take a mean free-kick and built his reputation as a solid, hard-tackling defender before being converted to a holding midfielder. His loan will keep him at Oxford until just before the January transfer window opens, and it remains to be seen what will follow. More players are expected to sign ahead of Saturday