Oxford United welcome Coventry City on Saturday looking to build on a Carabao Cup win over Millwall on Tuesday night.
The U’s came back from 2-0 down after 86 minutes to beat the Lions 4-2 on penalties and boss Karl Robinson is looking for his team to use that as a springboard to get back to winning in the league when his side take on the Sky Blues:
“We never gave up and we somehow found a way to get through” he said. “That took strength of character and a collective belief and has earned us a great game against West Ham at home in the next round. That will be a great night and I am sure it will be a sell out but it will take care of itself. Right now we have to concentrate all of our energy on beating Coventry and building momentum in the league.”
Karl had the bonus of midfielder Shandon Baptiste returning after injury on Tuesday and with doubts over Alex Gorrin and Cameron Brannagan as well as striker Matt Taylor, Baptiste may have done enough to stay in the team:
“None of them trained on Wednesday” Karl told iFollow. “Alex will train towards the end of the week and could be involved while the other two have groin injuries: Matty’s is worse and he had another scan on Wednesday so we will have to wait and see on that.”
“Shandon has gone through a lot of challenges this year but is an outstanding young man who we believe has a very bright future so it was good to be able to put his name on the teamsheet once more. We will take a look at everything in training on Friday and then pick a team we believe can win the game.”
Garry Parker’s arrival as a coach is something that Karl welcomed:
“He is an outstanding coach, just as he was an outstanding midfielder during his playing career. We wanted to have that extra flexibility of him watching the opposition and then working with us in training through the week building up to the game. It has worked well this week; our preparation and analysis is always really thorough but it is not all about the opposition. It is about us and about how the players use that Millwall result to make sure we get another win on Saturday.”
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