Chris Wilder is not worried by the long back-to-back Saturday trips to the north as his Oxford United team look to get back to winning ways at Gateshead today.

After Mansfield on Tuesday, the U’s were back on the road yesterday for the long trek to Tyneside, and they will be spending an age on the team bus again next weekend for the match at Barrow.

It’s close to 1,300 miles in just over ten days, but United’s manager doesn’t want anyone using the amount of travel that the Conference’s fixture computer has cruelly handed Oxford as an excuse.

“Yes, we’ve got long journeys, but we’ve got to handle it,” he said.

“We’ve got enough characters in that changing room in terms of myself, Mickey (Lewis) and Mel (Andy Melville) to regroup after Mansfield, and we’ll be OK.”

The U’s trained at Sheffield Wednesday and stayed overnight to break up the travelling, and Wilder believes his team will soon be back in the groove because they have so often shown how good they are away from home.

He said: “Gateshead are finding their feet and feeling their way in the league.

“If we do things right and are focused, we’ll be fine. We went to Wrexham and won – and look at Luton’s result there this week.

“We didn’t like losing at Mansfield, but Stevenage and Luton, who are possibly going to be two of our biggest challengers, as well as York and Cambridge, didn’t really gain ground on us.”

One thing United’s manager may try to impress on his players is the need for composure.

“At times in the second half on Tuesday we moved the ball around great and we opened them up,” he said. “It was just that little bit of anxiousness in the final third when we got into good positions.

“We were that desperate, sometimes the players have got to relax a bit. When we scored we still had another 20 minutes to go and we just forced it a touch. A bit of quality and a bit of calmness at times would have got us back on level terms.”

Gateshead, though, are unlikely to pose the same threat as Mansfield.

Adam Murray has recovered from the clattering he got at Field Mill, but Alfie Potter has been struggling this week with a virus. Youngster Aaron Woodley stands by.

Kevin Sandwith (ankle) and Marcus Kelly (toe) did not travel.

Gateshead: (from) Farman, Baxter, Swailes, Curtis, Cave, Francis, Gate, Turnbull, Armstrong, One, Mackay, Richardson, Harwood, Phillips, Provett, Robinson.

Oxford Utd: (from) Clarke, Batt, Foster, Creighton, Kinniburgh, Bulman, Murray, Clist, Green, Constable, Cook, Turley, Midson, Chapman, Perry, Potter, Woodley, Rhodes.