PHIL Gilchrist, Simon Marsh and Dean Windass return to Oxford's side at Birmingham tomorrow.

Gilchrist has recovered from illness, while Marsh and top scorer Windass are back after serving one-game suspensions.

"We need to start building our house in order again," stated Malcolm Shotton.

"Last week the lads could hide behind the problems there were at the club, but we've got to get back to being a footballing side to be reckoned with."

Midfielder Martin Gray said: "The spirit in the camp is good and we're all right behind the gaffer. We can't afford to leave it until Christmas to pull ourselves up the table.

"Come Christmas you can generally tell where you'll be for the rest of the season so i want us out of that bottom three by then."

Darren Purse and Marvin Johnson keep their places in Birmingham's central defence, ahead of Gary Ablett, after snuffing out West Brom's Lee Hughes last weekend.

At the other end, Blues have a formidable attack of Dele Adebola and Paul Furlong, spearheading strong flank play from Jon McCarthy and Peter Ndlovu.

"They're a powerful outfit but they can play as well," warned Shotton. "It's very rare to get that mixture of strength and a good footballing side and we've got to try to handle it."

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