Oxford United v Doncaster Rovers - Promotion ambition has to be embraced, insists Grant McCann

Twelve months on and sixth-placed Rovers are competing at the sharp end of a campaign, with a team charitably regarded as play-off outsiders last summer able to take justified pride in being resident in the top six virtually all season.

Key work – perhaps the most important of the campaign – remains, but Rovers’ progress has been substantial and neither are they shying away from what is ahead of them either, quite the opposite, in fact.

Manager Grant McCann, who has consistently urged Rovers to ‘aim for the stars’ since he he was installed as manager last summer, said: “The group has come a long way and hopefully there is more to come.

“We hope that in the five games hopefully coming up, starting at Oxford, that we give ourselves the best opportunity to be in the Championship.

“The aim has not changed and no-one is hiding behind the fact that promotion is the aim. If you start talking about the promotion word and you get a wee bit worried, then you could be in trouble.

“I have reiterated that to the group. The aim is promotion and do not fear it, embrace it.”

Rovers, three points clear of Darren Ferguson’s Peterborough United, who play their game in hand at high-flying Portsmouth on Tuesday evening, face an in-form Oxford side whose players only returned to training on Friday after being given time off by manager Karl Robinson, with the mid-tablers’ competitive campaign essentially over.

It represented a spell of rest and relaxation that the U’s have justifiably earned after pulling themselves clear of relegation trouble in fine fashion in 2019.

Robinson’s 11th-placed side have won eight of their last 11 games in a superb run of form in the final third of the season.

On home soil, the U’s have also lost just once in the current calendar year and are rated, by common consent, as one of the best sides to visit the Keepmoat Stadium so far in 2018-19.

McCann quipped: “I hope that they were on a 48-hour bender, to be honest! They are safe and it is a time where he is probably trying to get a bit of freshness into the group. Each to their own, everyone has got their prerogative."