Oxford United get set to take on Sunderland on Tuesday night with a place in the Carabao Cup quarter-finals at stake with under 500 seats remaining as we head for a sell out crowd.
“It’s a nice place to be” right now Head Coach Karl Robinson told iFollow earlier today. “One thing I do try and do wherever I’ve been is to bring people together and make people proud of their team. I see too many Chelsea, Man United and Liverpool shirts running around Oxfordshire, and it’s a frustration of mine. We have an opportunity to rip those other colours off and put a yellow shirt on them. If we get a good result tomorrow and then a big draw, it’ll certainly capture the imagination of the county.
“It doesn’t matter whose favourite and who’s not favourite because we’ve been favourite in some games and won, underdogs in another game and won and vice versa. Its all about the actual game, its about going on to the pitch and performing to the best of your ability and having a game plan which we’ll have.
“Phil Parkinson [Sunderland Manager] loves this competition, so he will know how to win in these one off cup competition games, but equally so do we. In our run so far we’ve played the team at the top of the league, we beat Millwall who are a top championship team and we beat West Ham and now we’ve got the biggest club in the league in the next round, so look at our run so far and we haven’t had an easy game anywhere, and yet we’ve managed to come through.
“We’ve competed very well on all fronts in the Carabao Cup and also in the leasing.com trophy and the league. To be sat where we are in the league, to still being in the fourth round of the Carabao Cup, to have qualified in the leasing.com trophy, yeah its been alright. We’re into the end of October, but it’s pointless talking about being good or bad, we’re not a good team, we’re nothing yet, not until you can put a number on your team where you finish, that’s when it can really matter, and that’s when you can create an identity and a football club that’s going in the right direction.”
United will wait on the fitness of Chris Cadden but look likely to be without Cameron Brannagan after he picked up an injury in the win over Rochdale on Saturday.
“Cadden is better than what we thought” Karl said. “He’s not going to go for a scan, so that’s good news but Cameron is struggling to walk again today, so he’s got a scan and he is sore. The positive is that he played thirty minutes with it and he took three corners with it. I probably would’ve gone mad if he hadn’t gone in for that tackle, it wasn’t even a 50/50, he was there, and Cam came in and that’s what’s jarred his knee. I love Cameron, and that’s just the way he is, and I don’t want to change that part of him. We just wish him luck for this afternoon.
“We will make changes for tomorrow, we were always likely to do that, and we’ll see where that takes us. “
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