Wilkinson fit for Oxford trip

The summer signing from Dagenham & Redbridge decided to come off after 40 minutes of the 3-2 win over Cambridge on Saturday due to a tight hamstring.

Boss John Still believes he will be available though, saying: “He’s trained, fair play to him, he felt it tight without it being a problem and he came off.

“I think he did absolutely the right thing with that. He’s fine, he trained today and I expect him to train tomorrow.”

Wilkinson has been one of Town’s stand out players this season after his switch from Still’s former club, with the manager adding: “Luke Wilkinson has come in and done all of the things I would have hoped he would have done.

“As time goes on he’ll just get better and get better, I really do.

“He’s a big player for us and when he came off he was a miss, you miss your best players.”

Fraser Franks stepped into Wilkinson’s place at the weekend as Still admitted Alex Lacey missed out with a slightly injury.,

He continued: “We’re fortunate we’ve got Fraser and Lacey.

“It was Fraser’s turn Saturday purely because Lacey had a knock from the midweek game (against Stotfold) to his head.

“He didn’t have to miss the game, he was medically okay, but there was no need to push him,

“It was the right thing to give him a rest and include Fraser in the subs, but we’ll wait and see about Saturday.”

Meanwhile, both recent signings Ryan Hall and Nathan Oduwa are available for this weekend, although the poor weather has hindered Town’s attempts to work on their returning players.

Still added: “Alex Lawless is getting back in training, Pelly Ruddock is back in training, as is Luke Gutidge, but I have to say their training has been held up with the conditions.

“We’ve not been able to train as we normally train and that’s not just us, but lots of clubs.

“We’ve not been able to give people enough work and it has just held them up a little bit as there was no development game (against Peterborough), that was called off.

“Those people are back in training though, so it gives our attacking options a great boost at a really, really important time.”