Oxford United’s under 18s continued their unbeaten run with a 1-1 draw at home to Luton Town on Saturday.
United stay joint top of the Merit League after a Kyran Lofthouse penalty levelled things against the Hatters in the first half. United had chances to win the game but it was under difficult circumstances after winger Ryan Crooks suffered a knee injury which coach Leon Blackmore-Such updated us on this morning.
“Thankfully the injury isn’t as bad as we thought on Saturday. We let it settle for a couple of days and it is his patella rather than any serious ligament damage. Even so Ryan will be out for six weeks, but that is better than we dared hope when he did it in the game and he has been lucky in some ways.
“In terms of the game itself we had Nico Jones back from first team duty and again gave a few new faces a chance to impress us for next season. We went behind to a great strike from their lad but we didn’t panic and we stuck to the game plan and that paid off when Connor Ferguson was brought down and Kyran Lofthouse scored from the spot.
"We had chances- Jack Stevens had a header, Kyran had a one on one, but over all it was probably fair on both teams and we stay level top now with Southend having caught us.
“Next up is a trip to play Stevenage on Friday night. They asked how we felt about switching to Friday and it will be good experience under the lights at St Neots, with a 7pm kick off. Hopefully we can keep this run going and get another positive performance and result.”
United
Harris, Sampford, Trialist (Gardner), Jones, Trialist, McCreadie, Stevens, Chambers-Parillon, Lofthouse, Ferguson (Goodrham), Crooks (Edwards)