MICHAEL Appleton says there is no need for Crawley Town to scout Oxford United’s final pre-season game tomorrow – because they will already know his team for next week’s Sky Bet League Two opener.

The U’s boss has kept faith with an almost unchanged line-up for the main friendly matches this month.

It means those who started the 2-0 win against Eastleigh last Saturday are set to continue when the summer schedule concludes against Coventry City, which is being played at Nuneaton Town due to pitch renovation work at the Kassam Stadium.

And providing there are no injuries, there is every chance the starting XI will be unchanged for the clash against Mark Yates’s Crawley side on August 8.

It is a deliberate plan from Appleton, who is hoping the settled side will pay dividends once the competitive football begins, even if it loses the element of surprise.

“Mark Yates won’t have to do too much work in terms of guessing what our starting XI will be,” the U’s head coach said.

“We’ve got nothing to hide and think we’ve got a half-decent squad going into the season.

“The 11 players likely to start on Saturday will probably play against Crawley, so there’s no need for them to come and watch us, because they know my team already.

“I just felt with us having a smaller squad it was an ideal opportunity to do that.

“I hope regardless of the result against Coventry, the performances improve like they have been.

“As long as that continues I’ll be going into that game against Crawley knowing these players have had three or four games together as a group and hopefully it will click on August 8.”

When asked whether the lack of changes meant the first XI had done well, or those on the fringes had not impressed, Appleton said: “Massively it’s the first one.

“The ones in the XI have certainly been doing well enough for me to keep faith with them.

“Those behind them have been doing fantastically well and there will be three or four who will feel they might deserve to be in the XI on any given day.”