OXFORD City general manager Justin Merritt has urged his players to improve, despite winning five successive matches, writes MATTHEW BRUCE.

The City boss was unimpressed with his side’s display in the 2-0 victory over Hyde on Saturday and he expects a better performance when they travel to Leamington in Vanarama Conference North on Boxing Day.

“We’ve got to improve on our general play from Saturday, because it wasn’t at the level we would have expected,” he said.

“We did the right things in both boxes, we kept a clean sheet and scored two good goals, but our overall play was not up to its usual standard.

  • Latest Sport news

“We’ll be looking to improve on our passing, our movement and our tempo at Leamington.”

Defender Lee Henderson is expected to be available to play despite his sending off on Saturday as his suspension has not yet started.

However, City are still without Darren Mullings and Marlon Jackson due to injury.

In Evo-Stik Southern League Division 1 South & West, North Leigh boss Mark Gee will make changes to the side which beat Oxfordshire rivals Wantage Town 5-0 on Saturday as they host struggling Bishops Cleeve.

Right back Stuart Hole returns to the squad after missing three matches while on honeymoon.

Wantage are without Adam Lovegrove (suspended), Karl Roberts (work commitments) and Daniel Warne (unavailable) for their trip to Swindon Supermarine, but manager Daniel Barry is looking to end the year on a high.

He said: “We will be looking to approach the game on Boxing Day with the right attitude and end 2014 with a positive result.

“It’s very difficult to keep the players motivated when we keep losing, but if we continue to work hard with a bit of luck results will start coming our way.”

In the Premier Division, Banbury United travel to Cirencester Town.

FRIDAY’S SQUADS

Oxford City (v Leamington, away): from De La Cruz, Scott, Henderson, Stonehouse, Del Alamo, Lapoujade, Santiago, Pond, Rodriguez, Winters, Yussuf, Barcelos, Wilson, Benjamin, Insa, Fofana, Murombedzi, Pearson.

North Leigh (v Bishops Cleeve, home): from Bulman, Turk, Gunn, Caton, Else, Ingram, Cook, A Woodley, Williams, Lewis, Bowles, Westlake, Osborne-Ricketts, Hole.

Wantage Tn (v Swindon Supermarine, away): Tucker, Glover, Hulbert-Thomas, Cattell, Lovegrove, Jones, Thorne, Doyle, Janes, McMahon, Johns, Reid, Smith, Barder.

  • Do you want alerts delivered straight to your phone via our WhatsApp service? Text NEWS or SPORT or NEWS AND SPORT, depending on which services you want, and your full name to 07767 417704. Save our number into your phone’s contacts as Oxford Mail WhatsApp and ensure you have WhatsApp installed.