Chris Wilder hopes to make one last signing as Oxford United prepare for the final push towards the play-offs.

The U’s boss wants to bring in a left-sided defender, because there are still doubts over whether Shane Killock will be fit to return to his best after his hamstring trouble.

Weymouth's Kevin Sandwith is one who has been linked with Oxford, in the midst of the crisis at Wessex Stadium.

With all the unpaid Terras players pulling out of Saturday's game against Rushden because they would not have been insured, the Dorset side fielded a youth team and lost 9-0.

After Oxford's 1-0 victory over Mansfield at the Kassam Stadium on Saturday – a magnificent seventh straight home league win – Wilder said: “We've got ourselves in a great position and we need to be strong going into the last 13 games of the season.

“I hope to do that with a little bit of wheeling and dealing.

“We're looking at a possible centre half because Shane Killock may be two or three weeks away, and you never know with hamstring injuries.

“That's the area I'm looking at because we can't really rely on Shane coming straight back, and if he breaks down, that's it for the season for him.

“So it would be someone to cover at left back and centre half. I'm hoping something might happen on Monday or Tuesday.”

A goal on the hour by Craig Nelthorpe, his first for the U’s, secured a vital three points and maintained their pressure on the leading clubs.

They are now just two points off the play-off places, but have played more games.

Wilder was delighted by the performance, and especially the way his team closed the game out in the last 15 minutes, something they have struggled to do in the past.

“In a tight game like this, the most important thing is winning,” he said.

“We've done the right things at the right times.

“They've defended when they had to, they killed the game when they had to late on, and they've taken the sting out of the game when they had to – because quality opposition like Mansfield will have a spell in the game.

“We saw it out and the last ten or 15 minutes, I thought we were quite comfortable.”

United inflicted a first defeat on the Stags in seven games since David Holdsworth took charge.

And for Nelthorpe, it proved a marked change from the previous week when he was substituted at half-time.

“I rattled Craig last week because I thought he was poor, and a couple of other things upset me in his display,” Wilder said.

“But he's a young boy, and Adam Chapman's a young boy, and he was absolutely superb, while I thought Damian Batt had probably his best game for the club.”