Chris Hackett, the 18-year-old winger whose breakthrough has been one of the few plusses for Oxford United, will not be risked again this season because of concern about his hernia.

United manager David Kemp said: "He won't play again this season, it's not worth the risk."

Kemp made Hackett a substitute for Saturday's home game with Oldham and threw him on near the end.

"I gave him ten minutes on Saturday as a final fling for the season, but it probably doesn't make sense to play him any more.

"We don't know whether he'll need an op. He'll probably just have rest for the moment, and we'll keep an eye on it."

So Hackett will be unable to take part this evening against Luton Town at Kenilworth Road, where he would have faced his girlfriend's brother, the Luton left back Matthew Taylor.

One player likely to return to now relegated Oxford is left-sided midfielder Paul Powell. He missed the 1-0 defeat by Oldham through illness, but reported feeling better yesterday, although he didn't train.

"He'd had a lot of games in succession and I think the rest may do him good. If he has recovered, he has every chance of starting," Kemp said.

And that would probably be at the expense of Joey Beauchamp who, although he did occasional eye-catching things on Saturday, did not show the consistency throughout the game that the manager was hoping for.

Dean Whitehead is back in the squad because Robert Quinn's knee injury, which forced him off the pitch just seven minutes into the Oldham game, is not substantially better.

A few United players are playing to try to earn new contracts, as well as for pride, but the main interest for United fans now will be to see who comes down to Division 3 with them.

Many want it to be Luton as well as arch rivals Swindon Town, after Joe Kinnear's comments that he was quitting Oxford United for "family and health reasons" seven days before taking over at the Bedfordshire club.

Luton look to be in a desperate position, but Kinnear has not given up hope of keeping them up.

Read more on the U's on This is United