Michael Stone previews the Mansfield match, as well as filling us in on the all important team news ahead of the game.

How about today (Thursday) and training then, the weather hasn't been too good but how's the squad looking?

We've come in with a few knocks from the game, we've obviously played two very tough fixtures in a short space of time, we go again on Saturday, so we really need to try and get through the weekend, come away with something positive and then we've got a full week recuperating and recovering and get ourselves ready for the Kettering game.

So one or two will probably have to play with the odd bruise on Saturday, which is how you expect to be going in at this time of year and there won't be many players at this time of year that will be playing at completely one hundred percent and injury free without feeling the odd ache and pain. So it's a case of nursing those through, some we withdrew from training today just to spend some time with Simon and hopefully they'll be back out on the training field on Friday where we'll look to prepare them for Saturday.

So is anyone particularly struggling?

Aaron O'Connor has a got a little bit of a swollen toe, it's one of those where it'll help if you can keep them out of football boots for twenty four hours as boots are not the best protective footwear, so that's just as a precaution.

Simon Downer trained which was positive after having to come off, he said it was more of a pain in his back so he'll come through after being able to train today, so more of them are little knocks, bruises and little aches and strains so you'd expect that after coming off the back of two tough games at this time of the season and we're hopeful that the majority of them, if not all of them will come back out tomorrow.

Tell us about Mansfield then, what do you know about them at this stage of the season and how they're looking and coming off the back of those very tough games as you say, so how do you approach this?

Well we've obviously played Mansfield at home and got a good result from them. Justin and myself went to watch them at AFC Wimbledon, when ours was cancelled. We've also got video footage of their match at Stevenage, so we feel we know them very well.

They're going to be a very strong opposition, physically very tough and they rely on that as their major strength and their height and physical strength. They also rely heavily on set pieces and we know if we can counteract those elements to their team, then hopefully with the way we play, we might be able to cause them problems and turn it upside down if you like with the ball on the ground and play and pass the ball.

So we're counteracting those strengths, sitting down and having a look and making sure we're aware of what's coming our way, briefing the players and looking forward to it. I think come three o'clock Saturday, the players will be ready to have a game hopefully conditions allowing and get going, trying to put that Oxford result to bed even if their performance was good and kicking on.