The Kassam Stadium, Monday 26th December, KO: 15:00

One of last seasons rivalries will be reignited on Boxing Day in a fixture that sees Northampton Town visit the runners up of League Two last season, Oxford United. Northampton will be looking for a win to reignite their season while Oxford are currently unbeaten in their last 8 games. This will no doubt be a tough test for the Cobblers up against a team who are going well and will be playing with confidence.

The Cobblers can be confident going in to this one, performances haven’t been great and results have not been going there way but they seem to do okay against Oxford, doing the double over them last season, both 1-0 wins, the first coming at Sixfields with Northampton playing with 10 men following Jason Taylor’s red card but Adam Smith saved the penalty that Taylor gave away and Northampton went on to win it thanks to a Sam Hoskins goal. The reverse fixture was a Tuesday night game at the Kassam in what was a closely contested game with Northampton winning thanks to a penalty from captain Marc Richards.

The Cobblers may be on a poor run of form but not all hope is lost, although performances have not been great in all the games they have lost there has not been much in it, with 6 defeats in their last 7 games being lost by just the single goal. This shows that although they are not at their best it does encourage the fans that they have the ability to turn it around. In a few of those games the team were extremely unlucky to not take home any points and had they taken points in some of those games, especially Bolton and Gillingham, there would not have been many complaints coming from the opposition.

There may also be some added motivation in the dressing room coming from some of the title winning players of last season with Oxford manager still saying that he believes that Oxford were the ‘best footballing team in the division’. This is a bold claim that did not sit well with the supporters and the team duly proved Michael Appleton wrong by winning the league by a massive 13 points, as well as beating his Oxford side twice. There may be a few in that dressing room desperate to get one over Michael Appleton and his Oxford United side.

Going in to this game there are no fresh injury concerns for Northampton who could be boosted by the return of Zander Diamond following the news that the central defender was back in full training having recovered from a fractured cheek bone. JJ Hooper is still struggling with a thigh injury and has already been ruled out by boss Rob Page and right back Brendan Moloney is still out recovering from the operation on his knee.

 

PREDICTED LINE UP (4-3-3)

Goalkeeper- David Cornell

Right Back- Aaron Phillips

Centre Backs- Lewin Nyatanga & Gabriel Zakuani

Left Back- David Buchanan

Central Midfielders- John-Joe O’Toole, Matty Taylor and Sam Hoskins

Left Wing- Kenji Gorre

Right Wing- Paul Anderson

Striker- Alex Revell

BENCH- Adam Smith (GK), Zander Diamond, Raheem Hanley, Jak McCourt, Harry Beautyman, Alfie Potter, Marc Richards

PREDICTION

Oxford United 1-1 Northampton Town

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