Oxford United are bidding to get back on track against Barrow on Saturday.

And manager Chris Wilder is hoping that watching a re-run of last Saturday’s 3-1 defeat at Kidderminster can help to remind the players of two key points.

“We’ve got to start better, in both halves, and we’ve got to stick to the plan,” he said.

The ‘video horror show’ is one of the oldest cliches of the football season, and invariably happens when a team loses badly.

Wilder himself says he does not generally like getting players in to go through their shortcomings on a DVD, but felt it was appropriate on Monday, for them to see again what went wrong at Aggbor-ough.

“There was input from the players as well. We gave them our thoughts, they gave us their opinions, and then we all agreed that we were right!” he laughed.

“But seriously, we listened to what they had to say, of course. We don’t treat them like kids. It’s not a concentration camp.

“I’ve been a player and sat for two and a half to three hours in a classroom, watching a video of a game, and players switch off.

“This was done just to highlight certain things. I thought it was a good time just to show them: there it is, it’s up on the screen – the start to the first half was poor, the start to the second half was poor, and we didn’t stick to the plan.

“I imagine it raised a few eyebrows that we changed the team’s shape, because we were excellent the week before. But we’d prepared properly and had gone through things for what we thought was the best chance of getting a result.

“But when it came to it, we didn’t give ourselves the best chance of getting a result. We played two wide men, and we never played it out to them.

“The fullbacks never got on the ball. And we were chasing the game from very early on, so everything went out the window.

“But it’s gone, we’ve written it off. We can learn from the start, and learn we have to stick to the plan, as a football team.

“If we go our there and start doing our little bits and pieces, and individuals start thinking this is how I should go about it, then we have problems.

“And I understand it’s not black and white, because when the ball rolls, players have to make instant decisions themselves, but there is a plan.”

However, United’s manager is confident his team will bounce back, and they felt they should have won the game at Barrow on October 3, which finished 1-1 – Luke Foster scoring United’s goal.

“The players were hurting on Saturday after the game, because of the fantastic away support we had,” said Wilder.

“They’re an honest bunch and they saw that they had been below-par.

“There’s not many times it’s happened, but the performance was poor, but as always there’s no shame in losing.

“We’re all disappointed when things don’t go well and we lose a game of football, but they’re a genuine bunch, and I’m sure they’ll come back with an even greater desire to get themselves back on track with three points.”

However, Barrow are in good form.

Saturday’s draw with AFC Wimbledon, which they felt should have finished as a win, extended their unbeaten run to ten matches in all competitions.

Admittedly, one of those was a 3-1 Lancashire County Cup victory over Rossendale United, but it’s still a strong run, which began with a 3-1 win over Mansfield the week before the 1-1 draw with Oxford.

The U’s will need to be back to their best again.