PEOPLE keep telling me that Oxford United have a poor record at Roots Hall.

That’s OK, so do I!

But do I think that has a bearing on today’s game at Southend? Not at all.

The only thing I see is that we face a difficult game against a team under a new manager in Sol Campbell who will be determined to start to turn things around.

They are going to come at us right from the start this afternoon.

We will be ready for that and hopefully it turns into a good game for the fans who are travelling round the M25 following us.

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With no game last Saturday, we gave the players a couple of days off at the end of the week.

Their instructions were simple – to get away and recharge their batteries.

We thought about all going somewhere together, but one theory put forward is that you do that when things are going against you, for purposes of team bonding.

But when you are on a long unbeaten run then it is more beneficial to spend time apart.

We were back in on Monday and had a double training session.

Then we played a friendly on Tuesday where everyone got 45 minutes of game time, just to get that match sharpness back.

I guess most teams in the league are going to have to cope with a weekend off this season after the sad demise of Bury.

The key thing is not to let it affect the rhythm and the momentum that we had built up over the last few weeks.

We actually had two matches going on at the training ground on Tuesday.

Our under 16s were playing a team from Indonesia in a game being beamed live back to Asia.

There was a huge camera crew involved and I did enjoy seeing our media team attempt to translate some messages they were trying to send out only in Indonesia!

To complete a busy week, I jumped into the car and set off to Colchester for the FA Youth Cup game.

What a great night that turned out to be.

The boys managed to win 4-3 with a header from Adam Smith, one of our under 16s, in the 96th minute.

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There were three penalties, a sending off and all the energy and passion that you would expect in that competition.

If you get a chance then come and watch them in the next round when they take on Maidenhead over at Thame United on December 10th.

I’m sure it will be just as entertaining.

I was very entertained to see a headline saying ‘Oxford United loan Boris their coach’.

I thought for a minute I had taken up politics!

In fact it was a slightly misleading story about a coach company loaning the Conservatives a bus for their campaign.

Apparently it’s one we have used before for away matches.

That’s not quite the same as having our own bus.

What’s the phrase I should use in politics – ah yes, ‘Fake News’!

We will have our usual coach today and hopefully we come back on it all smiles after another positive afternoon.