PREVIEW Des On Derby

Winger Josh Murphy is a new doubt as Oxford United prepare to take on Derby County at the Kassam Stadium on Friday night.

Murphy has been in fine form but missed the win over Cambridge on Boxing Day with a calf strain and Boss Des Buckingham will wait on the results of a scan before deciding whether Murphy can be involved

“”It’s hopefully not a long-term thing” he told iFollow. “Josh will go for a scan this afternoon and obviously that makes him a doubt for Friday night, but we have to make sure we look after players in situations like this. It’s the same with Billy Bodin where we could have asked him to play in the last couple of weeks knowing there was a risk, but you can’t actually do that. You are risking the player being out for a lot longer. We are lucky to have an excellent medical team here and we will wait and see when Josh and Billy are available again.

“In the meantime we won the last game without them and the players are really looking forward to Friday against Derby. They are a good team and were probably favourites to win the league. They will sell out the away seats and we know we are looking at another crowd of over 10,000 so it should be a fantastic atmosphere.

“The win on Boxing Day was important and our home form has been good this season. So we ask fans to snap up those last few places, come along and get behind us and we’ll see if we can send them home again smiling after a win.”

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