Histon are the visitors to Oxford United tomorrow for the first of four consecutive home games. Following the late, late capitulation to Luton Town on Tuesday, Oxford will be looking at a rebound performance against opposition that the Us have always beaten at home (they've played them twice in Oxford).

Following United's defeat at Kenilworth Road we made some rather harsh comments. We didn't mean for people to infer that United had thrown away the chances of winning the league. Rather that it was that sort of late collapse, preceded by the sitting-back defensive mentality, that leads to the throwing away of the league, which is what we saw four seasons ago. We remain fairly confident that Chris Wilder has the ability to turn this around and change the mentality of the players and we remain reasonably bullish that we will go up automatically. However, we do need to see both a performance and a result tomorrow that will banish the nightmare of Tuesday.

James Constable is suspended for the second game of his two-match ban, allowing Jack Midson the opportunity to put his former club to the sword. Adam Murray sees a specialist today to determine the extent of his back injury, but it's likely that we won't be seeing him in a Yellow shirt for a while yet, so we anticipate that Chris Hargreaves will retain both his place and the captain's armband. After Luton the rest of the position are likely to be up for grabs, but we think it's reasonable to assume that Sam Deering, Alfie Potter, Anthony Tonkin, Damian Batt, Simon Clist, and Dannie Bulman will all play a major part in the proceedings. Wilder may take the decision to bring Mark Creighton back into the defence to help cope with Histon's aerial assault, while Matt Green will be hoping to start after scoring with his first touch after coming on as subsitute for Deering on Tuesday.

Histon are unbeaten in their last three games, most recently winning 1-0 at Ebbsfleet United on Tuesday. They lie 13th in the table and have won five and drawn two of their 14 away games. There's not a lot else to say about them really, other than expressing our surprise that they're still competing at this level. [@opponent]histon[/@opponent][@connection]histon[/@connection]

Meanwhile, the Chester City saga rumbles on. Having survived a winding-up order by being granted an extension until 10 March by the High Court, they then failed to fulfil their game at Forest Green Rovers on Tuesday when first the coach company refused to drive them until they were paid what they were owed, and then most of the remaining players refused to travel, having been paid one week's wages (in used Scottish banknotes) of the three months that they're owed. This was compounded on Wednesday when the local constabulary announced that they were refusing to police tomorrow's derby against Wrexham due to the club not having paid outstanding bills, causing the local Health and Safety Executive to refuse to allow public access to the Deva Stadium. The Conference Board met to determine what punitive measures to take against Chester, with the gamut of punishments ranging from a fine (which isn't particularly useful given Chester's record for paying bills), a points deduction (Chester have no points to be deducted and are effectively already relegated, having started the season on -25, which is now -3), to expulsion from the Conference, which remains the most likely scenario. The board have suspended Chester for seven days, and given them a week to come up with an acceptable justification for failing to fulfil the two fixtures (among other offences), and will make a final decision on Thursday (one hopes). Should Chester be expelled, their record would be expunged, meaning that United's 4-0 win over them on 18 August would be eradicated, along with Constable's hat-trick. In terms of the league table, Oxford would remain second, behind Stevenage Borough on goal difference (Stevenage have taken six points off Chester), and with only one game in hand. At the top end of the table, Luton would be the big winners as those super Hatters have managed to draw 0-0 with Chester both times they've played. Oxford are due to play at the Deva on 27 February, but it's looking unlikely that the game will take place.