CHRIS Wilder has warned Oxford United not to read anything into Cheltenham Town’s slump in form ahead of the short trip to Whaddon Road on Saturday.

United’s back-to-back wins against Rotherham United and AFC Wimbledon in the last week are in stark contrast to the Mark Yates’ side, who have lost their last four games.

It has dented their hopes of automatic promotion and the U’s will move above Town if they can make it three wins in a row tomorrow.

The roles are reversed from the meeting at the Kassam Stadium in November, when a high-flying Cheltenham won 3-1 to inflict a third straight league defeat on United.

Wilder’s side have lost just twice since and the U’s boss stressed their hosts’ position in the table demanded respect.

“We all go through this in a season and it’s how quickly you get out of it,” he said.

“Fortunately after that we went on a really good run, so we’ve shown what we are about and I would imagine Mark would be saying to their players ‘we have to come out of this pretty quickly’ because if they don’t the consequences won’t be good.

“But they’ll have belief they can do because they’ve got a lot of good players and the manager is highly motivated and similar to myself whatever hurdles are put in front of them he’ll get over them.

“We’ve had some really tight games with them over the last couple of years, two draws last season and we’ll be looking to even the record up on Saturday.”

The loan window closed yesterday with no activity at United, but Cheltenham used the opportunity to bring in strikers Ben Burgess and former U’s loanee Steve MacLean.

There should be a good atmosphere for the game, with the away allocation of more than 1,500 tickets expected to be sold out.

Wilder said: “We’re happy to be in a stage of the season where there’s a hell of a lot to play for.

“I should imagine nobody else in this league will have the backing we have going into the back end of the season.

“It will give the players an absolutely unbelievable buzz when they run out on Saturday and see 1,500 of our supporters who are going to be loud.”