ONE member of the Oxford United squad will find it difficult to concentrate during their training camp in Barcelona this week.

But Ricardinho has a good reason for thinking of home – his wife Rachel is more than eight months pregnant with their second child, Zion.

The left back helped the U’s to a hard-fought 1-1 draw at Southend United on Saturday, providing the pass for Wes Thomas’s equaliser.

He then flew with the squad to Spain yesterday, hoping he will not have to make a rushed return journey back to Oxford this week.

The Brazilian said: “Barcelona is nice and I love to be with the team, but now I (also) have to take care of my family.

“I will go and try to enjoy it, but my head will be at home. We need to have this balance between the club and life.

“It will be great to go to Barcelona to enjoy and have hard training. I think my baby boy will wait for me.”

United fell behind at Roots Hall to Simon Cox’s tap-in at the end of a swift counter-attack.

But two minutes later the sides were level from Ricardinho’s through ball, although the defender admitted he had no idea it was aiming for Thomas when he played the ball.

He said: “I saw Alex (Mowatt) on the side and then I saw someone running.

“I didn’t know who it was, but I just tried to play a nice ball.

“He had a great turn and then did a great job to score.”

Overall, it was a difficult game on a testing playing surface which cut up quickly.

Ricardinho felt United stood up well to the physical side of the contest, but feels there is plenty to work on in Spain this week from a defensive point of view.

He said: “We have conceded many goals in the last six or seven games and we need to be more aggressive when we defend.

“We have to read the game, be compact and work hard to not give space to them.

“Then we have a much better chance to win the game because when we’re doing a good job we score many goals, but we need to be better in defence.”