Oxford United welcome Lewes to the United Stadium tomorrow as they bid to make it five consecutive home wins in the Conference. Confidence is on the up at Oxford at present, despite the five-point deduction that makes it extremely unlikely that the Us will be challenging for promotion this season. This is Lewes's first visit to Oxford for a league game, although they did pop over for a visit a couple of seasons back for an FA Trophy game that Oxford won. Having overcome the attempts of Altrincham, Salisbury, and Crawley to do the double over them, Oxford must now prevent Lewes from taking maximum points after they beat United 2-1 at the Dripping Pan, after Joe Burnell had given the Yellows the lead.

Chris Wilder won't be able to call on leading scorer James Constable, who is suspended after picking up his fifth booking of the season at Crawley (quickly followed by his sixth at Cambridge United on Thursday). He has been hoping to bring in a replacement striker on loan in time for tomorrow's game, and United have just signed Craig Farrell from York City, on loan until the end of the season. United have no new injury worries after Thursday's game, but they will be without Ricky Sappleton after the giant forward returned to Leicester without having set the Us alight.

Lewes come to Oxford in trouble. They are second from bottom of the Conference and have lost their last seven league games without scoring a goal. They have recently strenghtened their defence by bringing in former United loanee Guy Butters on loan from Brighton, to join other former Us Danny Cullip, Michael Standing, and on-loan Kieron St Aimee. Lewes have won just one game on the road, at Salisbury, immediately before their current losing run. Oxford should be clear favourites to win tomorrow, which immediately makes us nervous.

There were only three Conference games played today, and after them Oxford remain tenth, eight points off the play-offs. The only team near Oxford who played were ninth-placed Eastbourne Borough, who lost 2-1 at home to Mansfield Town, despite taking an early lead. Mansfield have risen to 14th. The other two games both featured teams in the bottom half. Salisbury climbed out of the relegation zone thanks to a 0-0 draw at Barrow, leaving the Whites in 20th place and Barrow 19th. In the other match, Woking moved up to 18th place after beating bottom side Northwich Victoria 4-1.[@opponent]lewes fc[/@opponent][@connection]lewes fc[/@connection]