MARK Cooper believes tonight’s Johnstone’s Paint Trophy derby with Oxford has come at the right time for his team.

On the face of it, having failed to win in over a month in a run spanning five games, you might wonder how the County Ground chief has reached that conclusion.

He will be without eight members of his first team squad for the short trip down the A420. Jordan Williams, Kevin Stewart and Wes Thomas and Fabien Robert are long-term injury doubts, Nathan Thompson a shorter-term concern, Yaser Kasim and Louis Thompson are on international duty and Jordan Stewart is back in Northern Ireland.

However very little focuses the mind like a derby and given the Us are favourites with the bookies ahead of the game, Cooper will be asking his players to stand firm.

“It’s probably the right game for us. A pressure game is probably what we need,” said Cooper.

“I’m looking forward to it. I’ve not sampled it before and it should be a good occasion.

“We have got to keep believing. It’s a totally new squad more or less and the fans have got to keep behind the players.

“We’re going to go, try and attack and win.

“I don’t know how you work on confidence. That only from them getting into those situations and starting to hit the target with a bit of quality.

“We have to roll our sleeves up, work hard and turn it around.”

Kasim will miss tonight and Saturday’s visit of Peterborough, but Louis Thompson could return from Welsh Under 21 duty in time for the weekend. Cooper was not preparing to use his thin squad as an excuse and backed his available players to step up.

“We’ve lost Jordan Williams, we lose Yaser (Kasim) and Louis (Thompson) for international duty for a week. So we are down to the bare bones at the moment,” he added.

“We have to be (confident the remaining players can get a result). We won’t do anything (in the transfer market) before Tuesday. So the players that are left have to stand up and be counted.”