IT is a competitive race for the top six and Sunderland face a huge task this weekend as part of their six game run in. They go to top six chasing Oxford United who sit just a place and a point below them in the table.

The U’s, who are the leagues top scorers with 75 goals, come up against a side who tightened up their defensive rearguard since Neil was appointed. But they go into the game off the back of two defeats having lost to relegation threatened Morecambe in midweek and in need of a result against the Black Cats. Neil went to watch the game in midweek to do his homework on this afternoon’s opponents.

The boss has been speaking about the tactical battle in the build up to the game as he added: “There are two key facets to the game.

“If they (Oxford) press the ball better than us, retain the ball better than us and attack better than us, then naturally we are going to be in a better position to win the match. If we can do that better than them, we put ourselves in the driving seat where hopefully we can win the game.

“But as we know at this level, Morecambe probably showed it, Oxford did both facts of the game better and still lost. That can happen.

“We just need to make sure we are on the right side of those key moments in the game whether it’s in possession or out of possession. You can put that down to pressure, quality or a whole host of things but that is probably going to be the deciding factor in the match.

“In these close crucial games, it’s about who performs on the day and who can make the difference on the day.”

Sunderland have no fresh injury concerns ahead of the game at the Kassam Stadium but will monitor the fitness of Nathan Broadhead and Alex Pritchard who made their returns in the 1-0 win over Gillingham last week.

Broadhead came off the bench to score the match winning goal at the Stadium of Light while Pritchard was withdrawn an hour into the game.

PREDICTED SUNDERLAND XI: Patterson; Winchester, Batth, Wright, Cirkin; Evans, O’Nien; Pritchard, Clarke, Roberts; Stewart