Talking Torquay

Helen Chamberlain's mob are in town tomorrow, which is just about the most interesting thing about United's next opponents, one of the few teams currently beneath the Us. United will definitely be without Paul Tait, who tweaked his hamstring at Rochdale and so the central midfield will probably be Dave Savage and Dean Whitehead as Oxford reverts to 4-4-2 for the home fixture. Richard Knight might be fit enough to regain the goalkeeper's jersey from Andy Woodman but it will be interesting to see which of the three centre backs makes way for the more attacking line-up. Paul Moody is expected to return to the starting line-up to partner Andy Scott up front.

Torquay have the misfortune to have signed Nicky Banger, who rescued a point for Plymouth at the Kassam Stadium earlier in the season. We trust that is the end of his jinx effect on us, for this season at least, and it is Tony Bedeau who will be the defence's biggest problem. Naively optimistic, we don't think that Torquay will pose us too big a threat and we over-confidently expect United to take all three points by a three-nil margin. Oh how we fully expect for this prediction to come back and haunt us!