SIMON Eastwood knows he may have to match his last performance against Newcastle United for Oxford United to claim a repeat Emirates FA Cup shock tomorrow.
The goalkeeper is likely to be the only player to start for the U’s at St James’ Park who also played for them when the sides met in 2017.
It proved to be arguably Eastwood’s finest display for the club, as he made a string of saves before keeping out Aleksandar Mitrovic’s penalty.
United went on to win 3-0 at the Kassam Stadium.
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Eastwood is relishing another meeting with the Magpies, this time on Tyneside, but is well aware he could need another big performance to give the underdogs any chance.
“I would imagine so,” he said.
“I’ll probably be quite busy, we might be under the cosh and it will be hard for a long period.
“But we’ll go there with a game plan and you never know.”
He added: “I think (in 2017) they might have come and thought it would be quite an easy game.
“But we gave them a good game and came out almost comfortably in the end.
“It was a great day, but it will be a lot harder on Saturday.”
United had to wait to discover their fourth-round opponents, after Newcastle drew with Rochdale in their first meeting.
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Eastwood had joked he would have preferred Dale, which is much closer to his family home in Huddersfield.
But the United players are all looking forward to playing at one of the Premier League’s largest grounds, which will be close to capacity.
The 30-year-old said: “It’s definitely one of the grounds I’ve wanted to play at.
“When we saw the draw everyone was happy we’d get to play at a big stadium with near on a full house.
“Nobody expects too much, all the pressure on us at the moment is on the league.
“If you go and win you’re heroes, if you lose you just get on with it.
While it will be the biggest crowd United have played in front of since the 1980s, excluding Wembley, the visitors believe they will not be in danger of stage fright.
Eastwood said: “I’ve been around long enough now to just treat it as a normal game.
“We get quite lucky with some of the grounds we go to in League One.
“Since I’ve been here Oxford have always done well in the cups and have got good draws against decent teams.
“This is as good as you can get. It’s a big club, a big ground.
“These are the ones you want to get drawn away to and experience it.”
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